AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY ADDS 7.9K JOBS IN JUNE, HUGE INCREASE IN FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT
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Australia’s jobs report for June has just been released, and it’s largely in line with expectations.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), employment grew by 7,900 in seasonally adjusted terms, slightly missing expectations for a gain of 10,000.
The increase took the total number of employed to 11.94 million, the highest level on record. Over the past year employment grew by 1.9%.
While a slightly disappointing headline result, it was more than offset by the internals of the report with full time employment surging by 38,400, largely offsetting a 30,500 drop in part time employment.
Male full time employment, after several years of tepid growth, jumped by 27,300. This was further bolstered by an increase of 11,100 in female full time employment growth.
Those trends were reversed in part time employment with males accounting for the vast bulk of the monthly decline reported, falling by 28,000.
By state and territory, Victoria and South Australia recorded the strongest jobs growth during the month, rising by 24,200 and 4,600 respectively. This was partially offset by declines of 11,900, 10,300 and 1,400 respectively in New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland.
The lumpiness of the employment change across the country, along with the split in full time and part time employment, will do little to bolster confidence in the reliability of the seasonally adjusted figures.
Indeed, despite the surge in full time employment growth, the number of hours worked fell by 4.3 million hours to 1,640 million hours.
The small gain in employment, along with an increase in labour market participation which rose 0.1 percentage point to 64.9%, saw the national unemployment rate tick up to 5.8%. This was in line with expectations but above the 5.7% level of May.
In absolute terms, the number of unemployed now stands at 734,200, down 3.1% on the levels of a year ago.
Across the states, New South Wales recorded the lowest unemployment rate across the country at 5.3%, although this was higher than the 5.1% rate of May.
In order of lowest to highest, New South Wales was followed by Western Australia and Victoria at 5.7%, Queensland at 6.5%, Tasmania at 6.6% and South Australia with 7.0%.
The ACT and Northern Territory recorded unemployment rates of 3.6% and 3.7% in trend terms.
The table below, supplied by the ABS, reveals the breakdown of unemployment levels across the country.
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