1. Record Immigration Wave…
The Western World is welcoming an unprecedented number of new immigrants. It’s not just Australia that’s experiencing record immigration growth – the US, Britain, Canada are also welcoming more people than ever before.
Source: The Economist (April 2024)
2. Retail slump…
Retail sales fell by 0.4% in the quarter to March, disappointing the market expectation of a 0.2% increase. The only retail category that increased was food. Without record levels of immigration, the fall would have been even bigger, as per capita retail sales have dropped by 6.5% over the last two years.
Source: ABS, Antipodean Macro (April 2024)
3. AI milestones… surpassing humans?
Artificial Intelligence is starting to match or surpass human performance in areas like speech and image recognition, and graduate mathematics, marking a significant evolution over the past two decades.
Source: Kiela (April 2024)