The Morrison government has been boasting for months about the strength of Australia's economic recovery from recession last year.
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That rebound will be put to the test in coming months with the end of the successful JobKeeper wage subsidy as of Sunday.
Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy told a Senate hearing last week that up to 150,000 people could be out of work because of the end of the support scheme.
The immediate impact will not be known until the April labour force report is released in May, but even then some businesses may decide to hang on without JobKeeper to see if they can survive.
In the meantime, there will be a flurry of economic figures in the coming week, as is normally the case at the start of the month.
Key housing figures for March are released by CoreLogic on Thursday after posting the fastest price rises in almost 18 years in February.
On the same day, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will issue its monthly lending data for February after demand for home loans struck a record high in January.
Australia's financial regulators - such as Treasury and the Reserve Bank - are keeping a watchful eye on developments in housing, but are not raising concerns as yet.
The first day of the month also sees retail spending figures for February, for which preliminary data has shown a 1.1 per cent decline.
The data week kicks off with the weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence gauge on Tuesday, which has seen respondents uneasy in recent weeks about the end of JobKeeper.
Also on Tuesday, the ABS will release its weekly payrolls report, a more frequent guide to the state of the jobs market during the pandemic.
On Wednesday, the RBA will issue its monthly credit data and the ABS its building approvals figures for February.
Meanwhile, Australian share market looks set for a positive start to a shortened trading week for Easter.
Australian share futures rose 49 points or 0.7 per cent to 6799 over the weekend, building on the best performance in stocks in seven weeks.
The S&P/ASX200 benchmark index closed 0.49 per cent higher at 6824.2 on Friday, with notable support for the buy now, pay later sector ahead of the end of JobKeeper.
Gains on Wall Street on Friday helped the local market maintain its positive tone.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.39 per cent to 33,072.88, the S&P 500 gained 1.66 per cent, to 3,974.54 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.24 per cent to 13,138.73.
Australian Associated Press
