Economists at the HSBC banking group have advised the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut interest rates by a further quarter point in March.

Earlier this month, the RBA chose to make a 0.25% cut to 2.25% — a record low — to counter the faltering economy.
The latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show that the country’s labour market in Australia worsened in January, with 12,200 job losses that month instead of the expected 5,000.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose from 6.1% to 6.4%.

Paul Bloxham and Daniel Smith, Australia economists at HSBC, released a statement saying: “Although other timely indicators of the labour market — such as job advertisements, job vacancies and business survey measures of hiring conditions — have painted a more positive picture of the labour market, the official data remains weak.

“Although employment growth has improved and is now running at 1.6% — up from 0.9% six months ago — this is still below trend and has been insufficient to push the unemployment rate lower.”