From the ABS: "The larger than usual......>

AUSTRALIA: From the ABS: "The larger than usual number of employed and

unemployed people leaving the labour force resulted in an unprecedented fall in

the participation rate by 2.4ppt to 63.5%. "This means there was a high number

of people without a job who didn't or couldn't actively look for work or weren't

available for work", Mr Jarvis said. When taken together with people leaving the

workforce, around 2.7mn people (about 1 in 5 people employed in March) either

left employment or had their hours reduced between March and April. This was

much greater than in previous years. As a result, the number of underemployed

people also rose sharply (up 603.3K people, to a total of 1.8mn people), and the

underemployment rate rose to a record high 13.7% (up 4.9ppt). The

underutilisation rate, which combines the unemployment and underemployment

rates, also rose to a record high of 19.9%. The falls in employment and hours in

April were consistent with the fall in payroll jobs for employers reporting

through the Single Touch Payroll system published in the recent releases of

Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages in Australia. That data showed a fall of ~607K

jobs in Single Touch Payroll enabled employers over the same period."