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Australia's unemployment rate drops, underemployment also lower

Xinhua, June 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australia's unemployment rate made a surprising dip to its lowest point in a year last month, falling to 6.0 percent, according to official data released on Thursday.

The latest labor force data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed 42,000 more Australians were employed in May, primarily driven by more than 29,800 women finding part-time employment.

At 6.0 percent, the jobless rate is the lowest since June 2014 and, in trend terms, employment has risen for 19 consecutive months.

The positive news saw the Australian dollar rise against its U. S. counterpart, gaining more than three-quarters of a cent to 77. 90 U.S. cents.

The better-than-expected figures came after economists had forecast only 10,000 jobs would be added in May, keeping the unemployment rate at 6.2 percent.

It came a month after the federal budget predicted the rate to reach 6.5 percent early next year as the end of the mining construction boom leaves more without a job.

Unemployment rates in the resource-rich states Western Australian and Queensland have bucked that trend, at least for the meantime, dipping 0.5 and 0.3 percentage points respectively in the past month.

Only South Australia (up 0.4 to 7.6 percent) and the Northern Territory (up 0.1 to 4.5 percent) recorded rises in unemployment.

The seasonally adjusted underemployment rate, released quarterly, remained unchanged from February at 8.5 percent. Combined with the unemployment rate, the latest seasonally adjusted estimate of total labour force underutilisation was 14.5 percent, a decrease of 0.4 percentage points from May.

Hours worked increased 0.1 percent to 1.631 billion hours, a record high and an increase of 2.0 percent over the past year. The labor force participation remained unchanged at 64.7 percent. Endi