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Australia Unemployment Rate Unchanged At 5.7%

By RTTNews Staff Writer   ✉  | Published:  | Google News Follow Us  | Join Us
rttnewslogo20mar2024

The unemployment rate in Australia was a seasonally adjusted 5.7 percent in May, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday - in line with expectations and unchanged from the previous month.

The Australian economy added 17,900 jobs last month - beating forecasts for 15,000 following the downwardly revised gain of 800 jobs in April (originally 10,600).

All of those new jobs were part-time following the addition of 19,100 part-time jobs a month earlier.

Full-time jobs were flat following the loss of 18,200 in April.

The participation rate came in at 64.8 percent - unchanged from the previous month but shy of expectations for 64.9 percent.

The monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased by 2.3 million hours (0.1 percent) to 1,632.1 million hours.

Hours worked have decreased by 13.7 million hours (0.8 percent) over the last six months, down from the high point at December 2015.

Also on Thursday, the ABS said that the total number of new motor vehicle sales in Australia was down a seasonally adjusted 1.1 percent on month in May, standing at 95,855.

That follows the 2.8 percent monthly decline in April.

On a yearly basis, new motor vehicle sales climbed 1.7 percent - slowing from 2.2 percent in the previous month.

By region, the largest downward movement across all states and territories was in Western Australia (-1.5 percent), while the largest gain was in the Northern Territory (1.6 percent).

By category, sales for passenger vehicles, sports utility vehicles and other vehicles fell 0.6 percent, 0.2 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively.

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