Sydney is making Australia look good.
It's Greater Sydney that has brought the national unemployment rate down to 5.6 per cent, instead of something starting with a 6. It's Sydney's very low mortgage arrears rate of just 0.84 per cent that held the national rate at 1.62 per cent in May.
It's Sydney that's enjoying the lion's share of the nation's infrastructure investment and disproportionately carries the growth stars of tourism and education.
Not that the average Sydneysider appreciates it - they're too busy trying to blame population growth for the traffic snarls that come with high employment rates when the government is playing catch-up.
Yes, population growth helps create employment, but employment opportunities also attract population - attracts people wanting to work.
The Reserve Bank's great hope is that it will also create faster wages growth. On the labour force figures, it looks like that's only on Sydney's horizon.
The detailed August employment statistics this week showed the Greater Sydney area (which includes the relatively high unemployment area of the Central Coast) enjoyed an unemployment rate in original terms of just 4.46 per cent, compared to the national seasonally adjusted figure of 5.6. The original series for Greater Sydney has been running at 4.4-something for five months.
The rest of NSW scored an unemployment rate of 6.1 per cent, but Sydney brought the overall NSW seasonally adjusted number down to 5 per cent.
Melbourne has faster population growth than Sydney thanks to interstate migration trends, but Greater Melbourne's August unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent, higher than the rest of Victoria with 5.1 per cent, leaving a state figure of 6.1.
Greater Brisbane's unemployment was 5.5 per cent, the rest of the state 5.8 per cent, Queensland overall 5.6.
Greater Perth had 6 per cent unemployment, WA 5.8. Adelaide and South Australia scored 5.5 per cent.
Hobart continues to show the MONA effect helped by a mini-housing boom, resulting in 4.8 per cent compared with 6.2 per cent for the overall state.
So far, the strong Greater Sydney employment story - an unemployment rate substantially below the economists' NAIRU ( the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) - isn't delivering big dividends in wages growth outside the construction industry. The latest NSW wage index showed annual growth of 2 per cent, only a notch above the national rate of 1.9 per cent. But the benefits of jobs shows up elsewhere.
Unsurprisingly, Sydney's strong employment story means few mortgage defaults, based on Moody's May figures. The real indicator of Sydney mortgage stress - mortgage's 30-days overdue - is low and falling despite the most expensive real estate in the nation. (OK, the public service town of Canberra is even lower, but hardly broadly representative of anything).
Philip Lowe, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). Photo: Sergio Dionisio
Not that the national delinquency rate is as bad as some might make out. Yes, the former resources construction hot spots are reflecting the decline in employment opportunities there, led by WA. But as Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe pointed out in a speech in Perth on Thursday, there are signs WA is turning the corner after the pain of returning to earth.
Indeed, turning corners seems to be all the rage. Property analyst Pete Wargent has fingered the omen of reasonable jobs growth of 17,000 and 10,000 respectively in Townsville and Mackay over the past year.
On mortgage arears he says: "Data & research from CoreLogic & SQM Research shows that the bellwether mining towns - Karratha, Port Hedland, Gladstone, Moranbah, Townsville, Whyalla - have turned or are turning the corner, with rents stabilising and vacancy rates tightening."
That's why the "Home loans arears hit five-year highs" headline could be the wrong message to take from the national Moody's arrears figures. What's more impressive is that they're lower than they were in 2011 and 2012 given the end of the mining boom and when the forward-looking indicators are that the worst could be past.
The balanced tone of Governor Lowe's speech - that there are reasons to be optimistic about our outlook, while being aware of the challenges - is especially strong in light of the most important corner-rounding of all: non-resources investment.
And about time too - as strong as Sydney is, it can't carry the rest of the nation indefinitely.
