Australian April jobs solid: Jobless rate ticks down to 5.7%, beats estimate

Dhwani Mehta FXStreet

Australian April employment report came much better-than expected, with the employment change at 37.4k vs 5.0k exp and 60k prior, with full time job creation at -11.6k vs 73.9k last, while part time jobs came at 49.0k vs -13.6k. The participation rate ticked higher to 64.8 %, while the unemployment rate improved to 5.7% vs 5.9%.

Key points

TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

Employment increased 19,900 to 12,071,300. Unemployment increased 1,700 to 744,400. Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.8%. Participation rate increased by less than 0.1 pts to 64.8%. Monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 2.0 million hours (0.12%) to 1,663.6 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

Employment increased 37,400 to 12,099,300. Full-time employment decreased 11,600 to 8,227,400 and part-time employment increased 49,000 to 3,871,900. Unemployment decreased 19,100 to 732,300. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 12,300 to 514,200 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased 6,800 to 218,000. Unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 pts to 5.7%. Participation rate remained steady at 64.8%. Monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 4.3 million hours (0.26%) to 1,659.5 million hours.

IMPACT OF CYCLONE DEBBIE ON ESTIMATES

The damage caused by Cyclone Debbie in Queensland resulted in a marginal increase in the sample loss in the Fitzroy region in April 2017, of less than 20 dwellings. This did not have any observable impact on estimates for Queensland.

Author

Dhwani Mehta

FXStreet

Residing in Mumbai (India), Dhwani is a Senior Analyst and Manager of the Asian session at FXStreet. She has over 10 years of experience in analyzing and covering the global financial markets, with specialization in Forex and commodities markets.

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