Australia’s unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 5.3 percent in July, seasonally adjusted, with a fall in the number of full time employed.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that despite the increase in the unemployment rate itself, the total number of people employed actually increased by 23,500 to 11.236 million, seasonally adjusted, in July.
While there was an increase in the total number of people employed, this was caused by growth in part time employment, with an additional 27,700 people finding part time employment in July totaling 3.369 million part time employed Australians, countering this was a a fall in full time employment which fell by 4,200 people to 7.866 million. While the total number of employed increased, the number of people unemployed also increased in July, up 24,600 people to 631,800 as reported by the ABS.
With the total number of unemployed and employed Australians increasing by an equivalent total number, the driving force for the increase in the unemployment rate comes from an increase in the participation rate, which is the number of people working or looking for work as previously ‘discouraged’ unemployed who had abandoned looking for work consider re-entering the workforce as the economy improves. The participation rate in July increased by 0.2 percentage point to 65.5 percent, which drove the majority of the 0.2 percent increase in the official unemployment rate from the ABS.
Aggregate hours worked in the Australian economy in July also fell slightly, down 7.2 million hours to 1,578.5 million hours.
