Roy Morgan Update July 15, 2025: Consumer Confidence, Inflation Expectations and Unemployment

In this week's Market Research Update, we present the latest data on Consumer Confidence, Inflation Expectations and Unemployment.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

The big news last week was the Reserve Bank deciding to leave interest rates unchanged at 3.85% - a shock decision to many with an interest rate cut widely expected and predicted by the media and prominent economists.

The decision clearly had an impact on Consumer Confidence, which fell by 2.1 points to 86.5 last week – ending a run of three straight weekly increases.

The indicators which drove Consumer Confidence lower this week relate to more negative expectations surrounding the Australian economy over the next year and next five years.

Consumer Confidence is now very much in line with it’s weekly average so far this year of 86.6.

Looking longer-term, Consumer Confidence has now been below the mark of 90 for 163 weeks stretching back to May 2022 – well over three years ago – a record long run below that level – longer even than recessions in the 1980s or 90s.

The Reserve Bank next meets in four weeks’ time on the second Tuesday of August to once again decide on interest rates.

In better news, ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations were little changed this week at 4.9%. (last week it was 5%).

This means Australians now expect inflation of 4.9% over each of the next two years.

This figure has been remarkably consistent this year and averaged 4.8% over the last four weeks, and 4.8% so far this year.

Indeed, the long-term average of Inflation Expectations over the last 15 years is also 4.8%.

Now to employment and unemployment – there is good news for the measure that really matters.

‘Real Unemployment’ in June is 10.4%, down 0.5% on a month ago - so, an estimated 1.65 million Australians are unemployed.

The factor driving this drop in unemployment was a good one – new jobs being created. Overall employment increased by 208,000 to over 14.2 million.

Even better, the big mover was full-time jobs which increased by 229,000 to over 9.2 million in June. Part-time employment was little changed at just over 5 million.

This growth is a welcome change after a workforce contraction a month earlier.

Remember, the workforce is the combination of employed and unemployed people. Roy Morgan estimates the size of the workforce in June at almost 15.9 million – 15,887,000, that’s up 147,000 on a month ago.

Despite the good news in June, there is still much work to do.

Overall, total unemployment and under-employment – what we might call workforce under-utilisation – was 20.3% of the workforce in June – estimated at over 3.2 million people.

This is the seventh straight month total unemployment and under-employment has been above 3 million.

Looking forward the re-elected Albanese Government will need to prioritise getting the economy moving again creating jobs and keeping people in the workforce.

This is crucial for productivity.

And finally Indonesia.

As many of you know Roy Morgan is the only research company that continuously surveys across Indonesia.

We’ve done this for over twenty years and the insights are fascinating.

Today we look at the leading issues facing Indonesia for newly elected Indonesian President Prabowo to deal with.

Indonesians were asked "Which three issues are the most important to you?”

Today we compare the main issues President Prabowo faces in his first six months (from October 2024 – March 2025) versus those of his predecessor, President Jokowi at the same period.

The big difference is the rise in Cost-of-living – nearly half of Indonesians, 44%, now say ‘Keeping day-to-day living costs down’ is an important issue – 10% higher than Jokowi faced when he was elected.

‘Fighting corruption’ is mentioned by 41% of Indonesians as one of their top 3 issues – unchanged from a decade ago – indicating just what a big issue this remains for many people in Indonesia.

Unemployment and economic management are more important to Indonesians now than ten years ago – ‘Reducing unemployment’ is now mentioned by 31% - up 7%, and ‘Managing the Economy’ – is also mentioned by 31%, and up 6%.

Some issues are relatively less important compared to a decade ago. ‘Improving Education is now mentioned by 24% of Indonesians, down 8%.

‘Improving Health Services and Hospitals’ and ‘Open and Honest Government’ – both mentioned by 14% of Indonesians and both down 5% compared to early 2015.