Australia’s employment rate has increased slightly to remain at 5.8%.
The AUD was getting absolutely smashed after the announcement, down 1.09% against the USD at 88 cents (chart below).
Our markets correspondent Greg McKenna will have the analysis up shortly.
Here’s the ABS release:
Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points but the rounded estimate remained at 5.8 per cent in December, as announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.
The ABS reported the number of people employed decreased by 22,600 to 11,629,500 in December. The decrease in employment was due to decreased full-time employment, down 31,600 people to 8,067,700, offset by increased part-time employment, up 9,000 to 3,561,800. The decrease in total employment was driven by decreases in male and female full-time employment and male part-time employment.
The number of people unemployed increased by 8,000 people to 722,000 in December, the ABS reported.
The ABS monthly seasonally adjusted aggregate hours worked series increased in December, up 0.6 million hours to 1,634.0 million hours.
The ABS reported a seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate decrease of 0.2 percentage points to 64.6 per cent in December.
Via investing.com