Australian Economy

Unemployment steady

David Llewellyn-Smith
Thursday, 8 May 2014
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its April Labour Force survey and news is not much:

  • Employment increased 14,200 (0.1%) to 11,572,900. Full-time employment increased 14,200 to 8,045,100 and part-time employment was unchanged.
  • Unemployment decreased 400 to 713,400. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work increased 8,700 to 519,500 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased 9,000 to 193,900.
  • The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.8%.
  • Participation rate decreased by less than 0.1 pts to 64.7%, based on unrounded estimates.
  • Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 39.9 million hours (2.5%) to 1,572.6 million hours.

Mediocre jobs growth and a nasty fall in hours worked but the market was looking for only 8,800 jobs so the dollar lifted 30 pips. The Kouk is thrilled for no apparent reason:

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Deep analysis from UE to follow.

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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.