MNI BRIEF: Australia Adds 56k Jobs, Unemployment At 4.0%
MNI (MELBOURNE) - Australia’s unemployment rate rose 10 basis points to 4.0% over December, while the economy added 56,326 jobs, more than the 15,000 expected, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed Thursday.
“The number of employed people grew by 0.4% in December 2024, slightly higher than the average monthly rise of 0.3% during 2024,” noted Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS. “It was also higher than the average monthly population growth of 0.2% over the year.”
The Reserve Bank of Australia wants to see greater weakness in the labour market to gauge whether falls in underlying inflation are sustainable. (See MNI INTERVIEW: Market Overestimating RBA Feb Rate Cut Chance)
“The rise in both the number of people employed and unemployed also saw a further rise in the participation rate, that is the percentage of the population who are employed or unemployed,” Jarvis added.