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The latest Roy Morgan Research (RMR) unemployment estimate for January registered a big lift in unemployment from 8.7% to 9.7%:
RM data is not seasonally-adjusted so the number always leaps in the new year with school leavers. More importly, over the year, unemployment rose by 0.5%.
However, underemployment dropped by 1.2% over the month and by 0.9% over the year, with labour underutilisation tracking at 18.4% (down from 0.3% from a year ago):
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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.