On the face of it, a two per cent lift in the number of employed people in Australia over the year to April 2016 is a good signal for banking.It's all of 11,000 people added to the labour force over one year in an economy facing a rising migration intake.Yet monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 17.9 million hours to 1,613.8 million hours over one month in April 2016, the second consecutive month of negative growth.Hours worked are close to static over 18 months. April 2016 hours are less than worked in January 2015.Looking back to the end of 2011, hours worked then are near the same as now.Professor William Mitchell, director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity at the University of Newcastle wrote in his Billy Blog yesterday: "I think the weak wages growth combined with the weak employment growth is a negative for bank profits."Credit growth is not being driven by capital formation so it has to come from consumption. That is moderating, given the above."The quarterly ABS broad labour underutilisation estimate (the sum of unemployment and underemployment) is among the least well-followed ABS employment measures.It's a measure above all for the constraints on an economy and banking, and currently it is bleak.Mitchell put underemployment for the February quarter at 8.4 per cent."Total labour underutilisation rate was at 14.2 per cent. There were 1.05 million underemployed and a total of 1.84 million workers either unemployed or underemployed," he said.