Uniquely in Australia, Canberra poses a puzzle for economists: why aren't wages rising faster?
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It's the only state or territory where the number of jobs on offer in recent months has been greater than the number of people seeking them, so why doesn't pay rise so vacancies are filled?
The capital of Australia seems to break the laws of supply and demand which the rest of Australia observes.
In June, for example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported there were 5600 people registered as unemployed and seeking work in the ACT - but throughout the past 12 months, the number of vacancies has been consistently above 7000. On recent figures, there were 7600 jobs on offer - more than one job for every job seeker.
Contrast that with the rest of Australia where the number of unemployed people far exceeds the number of job vacancies. In New South Wales, for example, it's about two unemployed people for every vacancy; in Queensland, it's about five unemployed for every vacancy. In Australia as a whole, it's between two and three job seekers for every job on offer.
But despite Canberra's shortage of workers to fill gaps, pay in the ACT doesn't rise very fast. Ways of measuring pay differ (Hourly, weekly or annual, for example? Including bonuses and overtime?) but on one reliable measure, pay in the ACT has risen 2 per cent in the past year compared with 2.5 per cent for Australia as a whole.
One respected economist reckons that Canberra's sluggish pay growth is because its labour market is different from other places. When there's a lack of jobs in the ACT, Canberrans move out. When there's a lot of work available, people move in, according to Joanne Masters, the chief economist with EY Oceania (EY used to be known as Ernst and Young, a global accountancy and consulting firm).
She thinks the "jobs gap" where there are more jobs than people to fill them "has not been driven by a rise in job vacancies, rather a sharp decline in the number of people unemployed".
"It's not a broad based city," she said. "Its population is much more migratory. They come when there are jobs so it's a fairly unique market."
She thought that in Melbourne and Sydney, for example, people were more stuck in their ways in that they were more loathe to move to seek work.
High property prices might inhibit incomers to Sydney and Melbourne.
The downside of Canberra's flexibility is that wages don't rise as much as they might in other places when employers want workers - they can fill the gaps with immigrants from other parts of Australia.
So why don't the unemployed fill the vacancies in Canberra? If there are roughly the same number or more people looking for work as there are gaps for them to fill, how are there any unemployed? Can't everybody get a job?
The answer is that the skills (or lack of them) of the unemployed might not match those demanded by the potential employer.
Bald unemployment figures don't tell the full story. There are people who are underemployed who don't figure - if, for example, someone's on a zero hours contract but only works a fraction of the week, they are counted as employed.
But on this, too, Canberra does well. The ACT government measures this underemployment and finds that it's lower than elsewhere.
The upside for Canberra is that the rate of unemployment is lower than for every other state or territory - roughly only 3.5 per cent of those in the labour force are out of work).
For young people, unemployment is also low at just under four per cent of those who want to work. "The ACT's youth unemployment rate was the lowest of all jurisdictions and well below the national average rate of twelve per cent," according to a bulletin put out by the government.
So there are jobs available for those with the right skills - though some might feel it would be nice if wages rose faster, too.