MNI 5 THINGS. Australian Unemployment Rate At Eight Year Low

By Lachlan Colquhoun

     SYDNEY (MNI) - Labour Force data for February was released Thursday, here

are five things of interest in the release by the Australian Bureau of

Statistics.

Surprise Fall. 

The market had been expecting an unchanged outcome for unemployment or even a

slight increase, so the 0.1% fall to 4.9% was a surprise. Unemployment is now at

its lowest level since June 2011.

Modest employment increase. 

The rise came despite only a modest pick-up in employment, with 4600 jobs

created. The market had been expecting an increase of around 15,000. Key to the

rise was a decline in the Participation Rate, down 0.2 percentage points to

65.6%.

Beating RBA forecasts -- for a change. 

The RBA has continued to focus on the Labour Market as a sign of the fundamental

strength of the domestic economy, but today's result was a rare example of data

exceeding Bank forecasts. The RBA had forecast that unemployment would stay at

5.0% for all of this year before falling again in 2020. Today's result is

against the trend of other recent economic data, and undermines calls for a rate

cut in the short term.

Full time employment falls. 

The result masked a fall of 7300 in full time employment, with part time

employment up by 11,900. Despite today's fall, the economy has added 210,000

full time jobs in the past year.

Uneven pattern across the states. 

The largest states of Victoria and New South Wales have seen strong employment

growth, but unemployment increased in both states in February. In Victoria,

unemployment increased from 4.6% in January to 4.8% in February, while in NSW it

increased from 3.9% to 4.3%. Tasmania, where unemployment rose to 7.0% in

January, saw a fall to 6.5%. The jump was even bigger in Western Australia,

where the rate fell 1.0% to 5.9%.

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2225; email: les.commons@marketnews.com

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