Australian consumers continued to show deep pessimism in June, beaten by cost-of-living pressures, while the recent fuel excise tax cut gave little relief to struggling consumers.
The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index fell 2.9% to 80.6, among the weakest figures in the 50-year history of the survey, with pessimists beating optimists by 20% in numbers.
"Australian consumers are clearly bracing for more bad news on the financial front," said Matthew Hassan, Westpac's head of Australian macro-forecasting.
Recent data seems to be in line with the comment, as Australia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 4.5% in April, up from 4.3% in March, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed recently.
Also, the gross domestic product rise of 0.3% in the March quarter shows that growth over the course of the year will be at a soft pace, ANZ said last week, adding that it expects a further weakening in real income growth over the year.
The Reserve Bank of Australia also expects gross domestic product growth to slow this year under the weight of higher interest rates and the Middle East conflict, with unemployment forecast to rise over the coming year but remain below pre-pandemic levels.
Hassan said the central bank is likely to hold interest rates at its meeting next week after three consecutive rate hikes, though further increases are still expected in future meetings.
