Australia’s economy added jobs in December, although not enough to prevent the unemployment rate edging up as participation in the workforce increased, Bloomberg News reported. December’s data caps a volatile year for Australian jobs, as declining participation for much of 2016 signaled more spare capacity than improved hiring figures suggested. There is some cause for optimism as participation picked up and full-time roles climbed toward the end of the year.

All 132 stores in the Payless Shoes network will close by February 2017, after administrators for the retail chain were unable to find a buyer for the business as a whole, SmartCompany.com.au reported. Administrators from Ferrier Hodgson said on Wednesday afternoon approximately 730 employees will be affected by the closures, although some employee contracts may be transferred to interested parties throughout the closure process. The administrators said they will now work with “interested parties and landlords” to transfer or close the Payless Shoes stores.

Two of Australia’s biggest banks have agreed to pay a combined fine of 15 million Australian dollars (€10.5 million) after admitting to attempted cartel conduct aimed at rigging the benchmark rate for the Malaysian ringgit, the Irish Times reported. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Australia’s competition watchdog, said on Friday that ANZ Bank had admitted to 10 instances of attempted cartel conduct, while Macquarie had admitted to eight instances in 2011.

Insolvent Australian industrial group Arrium Ltd's U.S. based Moly-Cop division has been sold to private equity firm American Industrial Partners for $1.23 billion, two sources close to the deal said, ending a drawn out sale process, Reuters reported. "I can confirm it is American Industrial Partners," one source said. Moly-Cop, which makes steel balls to grind ore and operates mostly in the United States and Latin America, also attracted interest from KPS Capital, a private equity limited partnerships with about $5.5 billion of assets under management.

China’s growing debt mountain poses a risk to Australia’s financial stability, a senior politician has warned, just weeks after the continent celebrated a quarter century of growth without a recession. China is Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for A$150bn of two-way trade in 2015. Beijing is also an important foreign investor in Australia, leaving Canberra potentially among the developed nations most exposed to a Chinese downturn.

China’s growing debt mountain poses a risk to Australia’s financial stability, a senior politician has warned, just weeks after the continent celebrated a quarter century of growth without a recession. China is Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for A$150bn of two-way trade in 2015. Beijing is also an important foreign investor in Australia, leaving Canberra potentially among the developed nations most exposed to a Chinese downturn.

Australia marked 25 years without a recession in the second quarter, another step closer to the Dutch record for the longest developed-economy expansion of recent decades, The Wall Street Journal reported. The economy grew 0.5% in the second quarter from the first and by 3.3% from a year earlier—the fastest pace in four years, pushed by spending on housing and public investment, government data showed Wednesday. The data also show, though, that growth increasingly relies on policy makers’ pulling out all the stops as the economy tries to reinvent itself.

A breakdown in Clive Palmer’s relationship with administrators of his Queensland Nickel business was evident around the time a dispute flared over a private jet, the company’s former financial chief has told the federal court, The Guardian reported. The court hearing by liquidators into the collapse of Queensland Nickel was shown an email stating that FTI Consulting’s John Park had “upset Clive P on the phone this evening” during a conversation about the administrator’s seizure of a Cessna Citation aircraft.

The owners of the Mater Private hospital, who recently pulled a sale of the business for the second time in 14 months, have secured a €300 million refinancing deal led by Australian bank Macquarie. The Sydney-based bank’s Macquarie Lending unit in London said it acted as lead arranger and finance partner for the hospital group. The transaction will refinance the Mater Private’s existing debt and includes a “tailored” capital expenditure facility to support growth and development of the hospital, it said.

When Woolworths reports its full-year results on Thursday, expect to see a loss of about $1 billion, analysts say, after restructuring costs and its exit from the disastrous Masters hardware business, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Credit Suisse analysts say that with a restructuring charge of $960 million and its exit from the Masters Home Improvement business being treated as a "discontinued operation", total impairments could hit $2.7 billion. That could leave Woolies with a statutory loss of around $1 billion.