WA Economic Profile for June 2017

Main updates this month

Population and labour market

• Western Australia’s population rose 0.7 per cent (16,835) in 2016.
• Western Australia’s employment rose by 4,300 in May 2017.
• The unemployment rate was 5.5 per cent in May 2017, below the 5.9 per cent in the previous month and 6.0 per cent a year ago.

Investment

• Western Australia’s nominal business investment fell 1 per cent to $9.7 billion in the March quarter 2017.
• Mining new capital expenditure fell 20 per cent to $4.9 billion in the March quarter 2017.

Exchange rate

• The monthly average Australian dollar exchange rate fell 0.3 per cent to US74.5 cents in May 2017.

Commodity prices

• In May 2017, the monthly average price of:
  • iron ore fell 11 per cent to US$62.4 a tonne
  • LNG rose 1 per cent to US$7.6 a million British thermal unit
  • crude oil fell 5 per cent to US$48.5 a barrel
  • gold fell 2 per cent to US$1,246 an ounce
• The Reserve Bank of Australia’s monthly index of rural commodity prices rose 0.5 per cent in May 2017.

 

The latest WA Economic Profile will be available on the Department of State Development’s website soon.