08 Sep A PER CAPITA DOWNTURN; WFH EMBRACED BY ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD
PER CAPITA DOWNTURN
Australians are experiencing a per capita recession for the first time since 2006 – excluding the years during the COVID-19 pandemic.
New figures from the ABS released on Wednesday showed that the economy grew by only 0.4 per cent in the June quarter, pushing the annual growth rate down to 2.1 per cent from 2.4 per cent.
When taking into account high population growth due to a rise in international students (who now number 855,000), the economic output per person has now declined six months in a row.
Despite this, some economists believe that a technical recession is still off the cards for Australia. Phew!
WFH EMBRACED BY ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD
The working-from-home trend appears to playing out the strongest in English speaking countries. A Stanford University, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and the Ifo Institute survey of more than 42,000 full-time workers in 34 countries found those in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and US worked an average 1.4 days a week at home, compared to 0.7 days across seven Asian countries and 0.8 days in 17 European countries. The average was 0.9 days.
Compared to Australia, where employees work from home 1.3 days a week on average, Asian countries have higher return-to-office rates as people struggle to be productive in small apartments and where WFH is less culturally acceptable. South Koreans work just 0.4 days at home a week and in Japan 0.5. ““It’s really hard to work from home if you live with a partner and have a one-bedroom apartment,” one of the authors of the study told the New York Times.
FUCHSIA, LYCHEE AND BUBBLE-GUM-COLOURED UNDIES
Despite cost-of-living pressures and cutbacks on discretionary spending, bright-coloured underwear is in high demand by many Aussies.
Underwear maker Step One has reported a significant financial turnaround, reporting a full-year net profit of $8.6 million, following a loss of $3 million last year.
Chief executive and founder Greg Taylor said the recovery was down to underwear proving “recession-proof”, with its fuchsia, lychee and bubble-gum-coloured “no chafing” undies being best sellers and boosting sales.
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