Today’s release of the – Labour Force data – for April 2015 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that the Australian labour market has contracted again, repeating the pattern over the last 24 months or so where employment growth zig-zags around the zero line and is weak at best. Full-time employment growth was sharply negative this month. Unemployment rose as a result as did the unemployment rate, but the latter would have been higher than 6.2 per cent had not the participation rate fell by 0.1 percentage points. The teenage labour market went backwards again and remains in a parlous state and requires an urgent policy problem that the Federal government refuses to recognise or deal with. In general, there remains a need for more job creation stimulated by an increased federal government deficit. Next week’s fiscal statement, widely tipped to include further cuts in net government spending, will demonstrate how incompetent and out of touch the federal government in Australia is.