Unemployment rate steady on falling participation

By Leith van Onselen

The ABS has just released labour force data for July, which has revealed the following headline figures:

Important things to note:

• The unemployment rate remained steady at 5.7%.
• Total employment decreased by a seasonally-adjusted 10,200 (0.1%) to 11,653,200. Full-time employment decreased 6,700 to 8,133,900 and part-time employment decreased 3,500 to 3,519,300.
• The participation rate decreased 0.2 pts to 65.1%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 7.9 million hours to 1,648.6 million hours.

I’ll return later with my usual detailed report.