Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 4.4 per cent in May as employment rose by 40,000 and the number of unemployed people declined by 18,000.
Full-time employment increased by 5,000 and part-time jobs by 35,000.
Hours worked fell 1.1 per cent, while trend employment continued to grow and labour market conditions remained broadly stable.
Sean Crick, ABS head of labour statistics, said, “Over the past few months, we have recorded higher proportions of unemployed people waiting to start jobs who then remained unemployed in the following month.” He said the recent improvement reflected an easing in the backlog of unemployed people waiting to start new jobs.
“The backlog of people waiting to start a job has eased in May, contributing to the 40,000 rises in employment and 18,000 fall in unemployed persons,” he added.
Total hours worked declined by 1.1 per cent in May, following a 0.9 per cent increase in April. Crick further said that April’s increase in hours worked was influenced by the Easter holiday period, with fewer people taking leave and more working their usual hours, contributing to stronger-than-usual hours worked during the month.
The underemployment rate edged up by 0.1 percentage points to 5.9 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms during May, indicating that some employed people continued to seek additional hours of work.
In trend terms, both employment and hours worked increased by 0.1 per cent in May. The trend underemployment rate eased marginally to 5.8 per cent, while the underutilisation rate remained unchanged at 10.2 per cent.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (JP)
