Unemployment rate falls to 48 year low of 3.9%

The ABS has just released its labour force survey for April, which reported that Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since August 1974 at just 3.9%, with underemployment also falling to its lowest level since 2008 at just 6.1%:

The key movements are shown below:

In particular:

• Unemployment rate down slightly to 3.9%.
• Participation rate decreased to 66.3%.
• Employment increased to 13,401,700.
• Employment to population ratio remained at 63.8%.
• Underemployment rate decreased to 6.1%.
• Monthly hours worked increased by 23 million hours.

The next chart plots the growth in jobs and hours worked:

Thank goodness for the collapse in immigration.