The fall in employment is a good indicator that things are pretty tough. The economy faces some stiff headwinds from the central bank's interest-rate increases and that's going to be showing up in the employment market, the housing market and consumer spending.

The fall in retail sector profits reflects the inability of many retailers to pass on cost increases in an environment of weak consumer spending.

It seems that heavy discounting succeeded in clearing unwanted inventory, but only in some areas of retailing and at the expense of retailers' profit margins.

There's good evidence that economic momentum globally is picking up and that's typically positive for commodities and the Australian dollar.

Even though there are a lot of anecdotes that the housing market is bouncing back, these numbers will cool that down a little bit.

Parts of the economy are still doing well, with mining booming and that's generating jobs. I do think that employment growth will slow this year and that will be enough to keep the central bank on the sidelines.