Australia's Jobs Machine Keeps the RBA's Finger Near the Trigger
A surprise June employment surge has revived bets on a fourth rate rise, leaving the Reserve Bank pinned between 4% inflation and a labour market that refuses to cool.
Australia's economy keeps handing the Reserve Bank an awkward problem: too much strength. PerthNow reported that following the Australian Bureau of Statistics June jobs figures, money markets lifted the odds of an August rate hike to around 30%, up from 20% before the release, with unemployment holding at 4.4% for a second month even as employment surged.
The RBA is running hot on rates already. As the Guardian and multiple outlets reported, the central bank has raised the cash rate three times this year to 4.35%, fully reversing the easing of 2025, and has since held at that level while it watches how the tightening feeds through. One further hike would take the rate to 4.6%, the highest since 2011.
A jobs market this tight against persistent inflation points to supply constraints, in energy, housing and labour, that no cash-rate setting can fix.
From the analysisInflation is the reason the trigger stays cocked. PerthNow noted inflation running at 4%, well above the RBA's 2-3% target band, with a fresh CPI print due before the August 10-11 meeting. Van Eck economist Cameron McCormack was quoted saying there was 'at least one more rate hike coming this year, and a considerable chance' of two.
The external shock complicating the picture is energy. The Guardian reported that traders had grown roughly twice as likely to price an RBA hike as the US-Iran conflict drove fuel prices higher, an imported inflation pressure the bank cannot control with domestic policy alone.
Households are feeling the squeeze from the other side. ABC News reported that house-price growth is outpacing wages despite a market slowdown, a reminder that years of constrained supply and heavy demand-side intervention have left Australian housing structurally expensive regardless of where the cash rate sits.
From a free-market vantage, the RBA's willingness to keep rates high to defend its inflation target is the responsible stance; the alternative, easing into 4% inflation to appease borrowers, would simply tax savers and erode the currency by stealth. Sound money is the precondition for everything else.
The deeper problem is not monetary but structural. A jobs market this tight against persistent inflation points to supply constraints, in energy, housing and labour, that no cash-rate setting can fix. The durable answer is deregulation and supply, not a softer central bank.
The Semaform
Australia's June employment surge and steady 4.4% unemployment revived market bets on an August RBA rate hike to about 30%, with inflation at 4% and a cash rate held at 4.35%.
The RBA is right to hold the line on inflation rather than ease into a 4% print to comfort borrowers; sound money protects savers and the currency. But a tight labour market colliding with stubborn inflation is a supply-side signal, and the durable cure is deregulating energy, housing and labour markets, not manipulating the cash rate.
Some economists, including at CBA, argue the bank should look through supply-driven, energy-led inflation and avoid over-tightening into a slowing growth outlook, warning that another hike risks tipping vulnerable mortgage-holders and the broader economy into unnecessary weakness.
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