As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its labour force report for September, which registered a soft 5,600 increase in total employment but a sharp 0.3% drop in the headline unemployment rate to 5.0% driven by a sharp 2.4% fall in labour force participation.
In trend terms, the unemployment rate fell marginally from 5.25% to 5.17% – a six year low: