The unemployment rate remained flat in October at 4.1 per cent, with employment growth moderating to 16,000.
While consensus was for an unemployment rate of 4.1 per cent, employment was expected to peak at around 25,200.
Bjorn Jarvis, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) head of labour statistics said: “With employment rising by around 16,000 people and the number of unemployed up by around 8,000, the unemployment rate remained at 4.1 per cent.
“This was the third month in a row that the unemployment rate had been at 4.1 per cent. This is around 0.6 percentage points above its recent low of 3.5 per cent in June 2023, but is 1.1 percentage points below March 2020, when it was 5.2 per cent.”
Jarvis explained that the number of unemployed people in October was 67,000 higher than a year ago but was still 82,000 people lower than in March 2020.
“While employment grew in October, the 0.1 per cent increase was the slowest growth in recent months. This was lower than each of the previous six months, when employment rose by an average of 0.3 per cent per month,” he said.
“With population growth in October outpacing the small rise in employment and unemployment, the participation rate fell slightly to 67.1 per cent, while the employment-to-population ratio remained at the historical high of 64.4 per cent.”
In trend terms, the unemployment rate remained at 4.1 per cent for October, for the fifth month in a row, while employment grew by around 36,800 people (0.3 per cent) – faster than the 20-year pre-pandemic average growth rate (0.2 per cent).
More to come.
