Unemployment steady

The ABS has released its Labor Force survey for May and the result was slightly ahead of consensus still subdued:

Employment increased 1,100 to 11,663,300. Full-time employment decreased 5,300 to 8,153,600 and part-time employment increased 6,400 to 3,509,600.
Unemployment decreased 3,600 (0.5%) to 682,900. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased 2,700 to 506,300 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased 6,300 to 176,600.
The unemployment rate at 5.5%.
The participation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 65.2%.
Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 11.5 million hours to 1,628.5 million hours.

Details to come from UE.

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.