Retail sales fall but beat forecasts

Retail sales continued to retreat in September after a pandemic surge, but they were stronger than expected.

Sydneysiders walk past a department store. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Australia’s retail sales continued to retreat in September, after surging earlier this year amid intense spending on food and household items because of the coronavirus pandemic and related lockdowns.

Retail sales fell 1.1 per cent in September compared to August, although that was stronger than Bloomberg’s consensus estimate of a 1.5 per cent fall and well above a 4 per cent fall in August.

Meanwhile the volume of retail sales in the September quarter surged 6.5 per cent, exceeding the consensus estimate of a 6 per cent rise, after falling 3.5 per cent in the June quarter.

“The quarterly rise was driven by a recovery in industries that saw sharp falls in the June quarter 2020, as well as continued strength in industries such as food retailing, other retailing and household goods,” said Ben James, director of Quarterly Economy Wide Surveys at the ABS.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services and clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing led the rises with gains of 28.1 per cent and 35.5 per cent respectively.

“Despite the quarter-on-quarter rise, both industries continue to trade below the level of September 2019 in seasonally adjusted volume terms,” Mr James said.

Separately, rate report, payroll jobs fell 0.8 per cent in the two weeks to October 17, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

“Nationally, payroll jobs fell for the second fortnight in a row, and were 4.4 per cent lower than mid-March,” said Bjorn Jarvis, ABS Head of Labor Statistics.