Graduates paid not to work ?

With the 30 day at 4.29% and the 180 day Bank Bill swap reference rate at 3.51% - still indicating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) /inflation decreasing over the next 6 months.
The 1 year Swap rate at 3.313% and the 5 year 4.030% - still indicating growth from 1 year ahead to 5 years at moderate yearly growth.
The domestic 5 year Bond yield at 3.49% and the 10 year at 3.975% could give conflicting signals to the market, but still show subdued GDP growth from 5 year to 10 years ahead.

The Oliver Job Index has stabilised but recorded a decrease of 1.81% in December, seasonally adjusted. An interesting observation was news at several large companies and firms were reneging on graduate positions to cut costs. The Australian law firm Middletons has paid AUS$10,000 to 9 of its 36 graduates to defer their spots until next year. Not to be out done Price Waterhouse Coppers (PwC) has encouraged graduates to defer their start date and has offers AUS$4000 cash payments to those who begin in July. The law firm Coors Chambers Westgarth had deferred the start date for its 55 graduates to April 21, with each graduate paid $2300 to make up for the inconvenience.

Industrial Property development and planning substantially decreased in the 4th quarter of 2008. Current information indicates planning and development forecast for 2009 to dropping back to a 5 year annual average (approx. 1,900,000 sqm) by information sourced by Jones Lang Lasalle. Over the past 5 year in Australia there has been a record supply of industrial property. 2007 & 2008 saw a record amount of industrial complete by square meter. With this decrease in development, property yields should increase due to reduced supply, but with the downturn in the economy over the next year, this could counterbalanced by the increase in vacancies. Reports indicate a small number of commercial and industrial tenants for a number of reasons are subleasing their property, adding to the speculation the there will be little rental growth in 2009.

With housing rental in Australian capital cities so unaffordable for graduates that have been asked to wait until next year to commence work, maybe shifting into an industrial property could be a cheap alternative to shifting out of home.