Australia posted a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 6.0 percent in February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday - in line with expectations and unchanged from the January reading.
The Australian economy gained 47,300 jobs in February to 11,530,800 - blowing away expectations for a gain of 15,000 following the loss of 3,700 jobs in the previous month.
Full-time employment increased by 80,500 to 8,049,900 and part-time employment decreased by 33,300 to 3,480,900.
The number of people unemployed increased by 9,800 people to 742,200 in February, the ABS reported. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 24,100 to 525,000 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 33,900 to 217,200.
The participation rate was 64.8 percent in February, up from the upwardly revised 64.6 percent in January (originally 64.5 percent).
Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 14.0 million hours (0.9%) to 1,608.9 million hours.
The seasonally adjusted underemployment rate was 7.4 percent. Combined with the unemployment rate of 6.0 percent, the latest seasonally adjusted estimate of total labor force underutilization was 13.5 percent in February, based on unrounded estimates, the ABS said.
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