58,200 jobs were created in Australia in July, all of which were full-time (60,500), and there was a small decline in part-time employment (-2,300). Australian labour data is choppy, but this is the second month in a row in which total employment has risen by more than 50,000, and the June figure was also dominated by full-time employment. 

There may be some concern that the unemployment rate has risen from 4.1% to 4.2%. However, the blame for this can be levelled firmly at the door of the rise in the labour force, where another strong monthly increase will have left some new entrants still without work, contributing to a roughly 24,000 increase in the unemployment total. We expect most of these new jobless will be swallowed up in next month’s employment gains, with some initially getting part-time work before converting to full-time jobs. 

In other words, this might be considered a “good” increase in the unemployment rate, which is both likely to be relatively short-lived, and reflects optimism about labour opportunities, not job shedding.