The Australian dollar lifted further to US72.72¢ on 15 November 2018 after Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its October employment figures which showed that the trend unemployment rate fell from 5.2 percent to 5.1 percent in the month of October 2018 while the trend participation rate remained steady at 65.6 percent. The unemployment rate is a portion of the labor force that is jobless, and it is a key measure used by economists to judge the health of an economy. As per Chief Economist for the ABS Mr. Bruce Hockman, the reduction in the trend unemployment to 5.1 percent marks the lowest unemployment rate since early 2012.
Further, Mr. Hockman also said that of the 20,300 average monthly increase in employed full-time persons over the past 25 months, New South Wales contributed 35.9 percent, Victoria 30.5 percent, Queensland 16.5 percent, and Western Australia 12.1 percent and the contribution of the other states and territories were largely flat.
In the October month, the Australian economy added 32.8k jobs providing evidence that the labour market is getting tighter. As per the ABS data, during the October month employment increased by 25,400 persons to 12,665,800 persons and unemployment decreased by 7,600 persons to 680,300 persons. ABS Data shows that the monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 3.6 million hours (0.2 percent) to 1,761.8 million hours and the monthly trend underemployment rate remained steady at 8.3 percent. Further, the monthly seasonally adjusted underemployment rate and underutilization rate remained steady at 8.3 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively. Over the past year, trend employment increased by 285,900 persons or 2.3 percent, which was above the average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years (2.0 percent). Last week, the Reserve Bank of Australia upgraded its assessment of the labour market, tipping the jobless rate to fall to 4.75 percent in 2020.
In September month, ABS reported that Australia’s unemployment rate decreased to its lowest since 2016 as it dropped to 5% mainly driven by the substantial decline in the number of people actively looking for work. While discussing the September month’s unemployment data the Federal Treasurer Mr. Josh Frydenberg said that the downfall in the unemployment rate is something to celebrate. In the September month, ABS reported that the employment increased 32,800 persons to 12,671,500 persons and the Full-time employment increased 42,300 persons to 8,703,700 persons while the part-time employment decreased 9,500 persons to 3,967,900 persons.
Recently the reserve bank of Australia forecasted that the unemployment rate might reach 5.5 percent in the December quarter and then it could decline to 5.25 percent by June 2019.
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