Unemployment in Australia falls to lowest point in 13 years

The unemployment rate in Australia fell to its lowest rate in over 13 years, adding 64,800 jobs in December, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 

“This is the lowest unemployment rate since August 2008, just before the start of the global financial crisis and Lehman Brothers collapse, when it was 4%” said Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS. 

“Recovery in New South Wales and Victoria continued to have a large influence on the national figures, with employment in these two states increasing by 32,000 and 25,000 people between November and December. Their employment was around where it had been in May having fallen 250,000 and 145,000 during the lockdowns,” Jarvis added. 

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The labour participation rate remained steady in December, at 66.1%. “This was in contrast to what we saw in November, when a large number of people who were attached to a job re-entered the labour force, which drove the participation rate up by 1.4 percentage points,” he added.