Unemployment edges up despite more than 50,000 extra jobs amid rapid population growth

by Admin
July 18, 2024

Australia’s unemployment rate has continued to edge higher, despite the creation of about 50,000, mostly full-time, jobs.

Bureau of Statistics figures put the unemployment rate at 4.1 per cent in June, up slightly from 4 per cent the previous month.

The bureau’s head of labour statistics, Bjorn Jarvis, said a slight increase in the proportion of Australians aged 15 and over in work or looking for it, was the main reason unemployment rose despite such strong job creation.

“The participation rate in June was only 0.1 percentage point lower than the historical high of 67.0 per cent in November 2023,” he noted.

“The employment-to-population ratio rose by 0.1 percentage point to 64.2 per cent, which was also close to its historical high of 64.4 per cent in November 2023.

“This, along with the continued high level of job vacancies, suggests the labour market remains relatively tight, despite the unemployment rate being above 4.0 per cent since April.”

Mr Jarvis pointed out that, although the unemployment rate had risen half a percentage point from where it was a year ago, the jobless rate is still 1.1 percentage points lower than it was in March 2020, just before COVID lockdowns threw the economy into recession.

In other good news for workers, underemployment also fell 0.3 percentage points to 6.5 per cent, due to an increase in hours worked as most new jobs were full-time roles.

However, the ABS data also confirmed what most of us already knew anecdotally, which is that an unusually high number of workers were off sick last month as a wave of respiratory illnesses swept the nation.

“In June, we continued to see more people than usual working reduced hours because they were sick, similar to what we saw in May,” Mr Jarvis observed.

“Around 4.5 per cent of employed people in June could not work their usual hours because they were sick, compared to the pre-pandemic average for June of 3.6 per cent.”

To make up for being sick, fewer workers took winter holidays in June.

“However, we also saw less people taking annual leave in June 2024,” Mr Jarvis added.

“There were around 12.5 per cent of people working fewer hours because they were on leave, compared with the pre-pandemic average for June of 14.5 per cent. This contributed to the increase in hours worked this month.”

Posted 38 minutes agoThu 18 Jul 2024 at 1:37am, updated 13 minutes agoThu 18 Jul 2024 at 2:02am