Certainty ? ...... There is no certainty

@Perthguy, yes... and I supplement my income with a really well performing Airbnb and I get a bit of extra income by doing work for my local Volleyball club, Sydney North Volleyball. That's not huge dollars, but enough for all my bus travel every week.
And with the Airbnb I pay others to clean when I cant do it... that's freelance employment.

So if you want a job on the side, you can easily pick it up.... the family I stayed in Canberra with ran an Airbnb from their house. The guy was underemployed. No problem... Airbnb helped him and his family with extra income. I know one of my ex-colleagues from NRMA decided to start his own business from home and while that gets going he is getting extra income from Airbnb hosting. He said if he didn't have that, there's no way he could launch his own company. (Basically his business is travel photography in Asia. He knows Asia having been a wholesale travel consultant for many years, at NRMA was where we worked together and his business fits right into his skills and passions. Good on him!).

Anyway, Airbnb is not for everyone, but can work if you want to try it.
And if you have a skill in some area, why not monetise it?

 

Correct but a lot more in QLD than Melbourne or Sydney and it isn't just IT. I have recruiter friends in just about any industry who say the same thing.

IBM are actually hiring believe it or not They dont tell me all of their ins and outs as I only appoint at senior level but recently I appointed people with them and I am in the process of appointing more. Their focus now is in the digital area which is the buzz word going around.

As for CBA, I am sure you are aware of HCL arrangement and know the ins and outs of it. I don't need to tell you how that has dampened salaries at CBA and CBA is only a whisper away from sending 50% of it's workforce into HCL which will in turn go right offshore.

The problem with Australian economy is that first we dont really produce much other than raw products that China may or may not want to buy and we dont have a large domestic economy. Every industry including IT and finance is very volatile.

Coles sent most of it's workforce to Phillipnes not long ago. Qantas and Telstra are in competition with each other on who can announce more redundancies and send jobs overseas.

Our own government is outsourcing parts of it's work to infosys which in turn goes overseas. Although this is not as bad as some of the private companies I mentioned, it is not good either.

There are only really a handful of SMEs that are committed to having jobs here in Australia. Now imagine if Melbourne and Sydney that dont have a seasonal economy are in this position, what can happen across other states which will be similar to what is happening in Perth.

 

Ahhh well... live and let live. Lets just say i'm really happy to have multiple IPs in Sydney all performing extremely well, even if Sydney were to drop 10 or 15% that's still represents a lot of growth for me, I have a home that's doubled in value since I bought it, 1 IP in Brisbane in a beautiful spot I don't think i'll ever lose out on (its just too nice and I want to move up there)....
I figure I can still live a great life even if I was to just be a parttime department store nightfiller or someone who just works at a garden centre. Garden shop people (staff and customers) are nice....
And keep Airbnbing.

 

Gockie there is a reason for this...blame Australian companies for their short term outlook and guess what?? Australian shareholders who perpetually want more....

IT people have had it really good for many years....it is time people realize that there are people who are just as skilled in other countries who will work for less.

Also...don't get me started with doctors...that is what I call a closed shop....over the years medicine in Australia has become very poor quality.

The funny thing is the pseudo protectionism put out by Australians will only hold the fort for so long...we need to be able to compete on a global scale...compete or be extinct.

Probably one of the reasons why I invest in property....

 

Agree on the first part about short termism.
The second part- ofcourse shareholders want more..nothing wrong with that..they are investors as well.havnt you watched our mate Gordon gekko in wall St movie- greed is good
I agree with the rest.
Regarding outsourcing - well its been discussed to death on many sites and publications. Like it or not the force of globalisation is second only to climate change in its power and influence, with sooner effects. The trick to insulate your job from outsourcing is to de-commoditize it as much as possible.

 

That link on Wiki is actually incorrect.

ABS records show that over 50% of our exports is related to mining either in the way of mining the raw material OR processing the raw material which is nominated under "Manufacturing" but realistically it is mining because if it was not for the export of mining material that portion of manufacturing would not exist.

Also bear in mind, in a domestic economy as small as Australia, it is exportation and not necessarily GDP that has a direct impact on employment. Luxembourg is a perfect example. A country with high GDP per capita and lower exportation that is nowhere to be found on the map of countries with strong economy.

On global scale to be 68% service based will be wishful thinking for Australia, given our biggest exports are farming and mining products.

If mining only has 7% impact, as the link suggests, on our economy then these experts that constantly talk about mining slow down and the impact it has on the economy are delusional

 

**** happens.

They should learn to deal with it.

 

I don't think that is correct either. For example, according to tradingeconomics.com, construction makes up approximately 21% of GDP. GDP is not all about exports. It also has a significant construction sector. A downturn in construction definitely has a direct impact on employment, both in the construction sector and also the industries that support construction. I have seen this myself with people who make and sell bricks.

Roughly:
GDP From Agriculture: 6%
GDP From Construction: 21%
GDP From Manufacturing: 17%
GDP From Mining: 24%
GDP From Public Administration: 15%
GDP From Utilities: 7%
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/indicators

 

@Perthguy
Don't mean to be ignorant but what are you trying to say?

I never brought up GDP or its break down.

The link on wiki was positioned in a way to say that raw products (that I mentioned is our biggest export) does not have as much of an impact on our economy because we are apparently around 70% service based economy and only 7% mining.

I mentioned why the link does not provide a good indicator.

Yes you can have a high GDP in certain areas but it is ultimately the net position of your exports and their structure Vs your imports that is the true test of your economy's strength.

In other words you can have a very strong seasonal domestic construction economy which has a very high GDP per capita contribution. Unless the people that pay money for homes to be built are not ultimately funded by a product or service that is sold to another country in order to create employment in the first place that GDP does not mean anything.

This is another reason why the reserve bank raises interest rates to avoid inflation. People can go into a spending frenzy which boosts local economy but because the money is borrowed from overseas they raise interest rates to slow down spending even though it can boost certain sectors.

 

GDP was raised in the wiki link you said was incorrect.

"The mining sector represents 7% of GDP; including services to mining, the total value of the Mining Industry in 2009-10 was 8.4% of GDP."

Now I've gone though it again, I don't think any of us are right!

 

Correct but my point was not to provide a GDP break down one way or another. My point was speaking of GDP in this scenario is irrelevant.

Eventually employment heavily relies on export of goods and services and this is even further true when we are speaking about countries with far smaller domestic economies such as Australia.

To say that mining has a 7% role in our economy because wiki thinks that the total GDP of mining is only 7% is wildly false.

If mining played a small role in our economy then there is no reason why for Perth property prices to go backwards in a time when we have record low interest rates.

Ultimately a very large portion of our employment in this country either directly or indirectly depends on raw products.

Also it would be worthwhile to check the recent auction clearance numbers in Sydney and Brisbane. There might be a little surprise there as well. Going by those numbers, Brisbane property market is actually cooling down.

 

Can't disagree that Sydney isn't cooling, however Brisbane's auction clearance rates have not been high anytime in the past few years so an auction clearance rate in the 50's or 60's isn't actually indicative of a cooling market?

 

They have been dropping for sure, they used to be higher in Brisbane. If I am not mistaken Channel 9 had also put a segment on current affair or something about the market cooling down in Brisbane.

The auction clearance alone is not the only thing to go by as there are other factors at play but it is one of the things to pay attention to.

Brisbane's auctions have cooled down at a faster rate than Melbourne or Sydney.

Generally speaking this is the product of APRA doing what they have done. I suspect if / when interest rates go up it will keep dampening prices and clearance rates everywhere including Brisbane.

Out of interest, lets say you buy a property at 500k in Brisbane within 10k of the CBD, where do you expect it to be within the next 6 years and why do you think it will get there?

 

What can I say, it worked, markets are cooling everywhere

APRA was engineered by government to slow property market and it has worked

I expect FHB market will be most resilient at this stage of cycle?

 

Our discussions with agents in the area we're buying in don't indicate any cooling , seems to be more competition for the good deals that do come up .

Cliff

 

@Gockie
I re read your post, auctions are not popular in Brissy, same as in Perth so I would not look at clearances as an indicator.

 

Ya, really only Melb and Syd that do auctions.

 

Fair point. So what we need is employment by sector. I know construction employs a lot of people with support from associated industries. A slow down in construction will have a bigger impact on employment than indicated by GDP. Not sure about mining. I will try to track something down when I get a chance.

 

It was @Tenex that said that Brisbane's decreasing clearance rate was an indication of cooling there... I was rebutting that.

 

Haha, thanks