The Australian Bureau of Statistics has today released another healthy set of unemployment figures for the month of December, in which another 35,000 people in the country found a job.
Employment has in fact risen for each month of 2017 and it’s the first time that has happened since the ABS has been releasing monthly data.
The ABS’ chief economist Bruce Hockman discussed the latest unemployment figures when he spoke to The Age.
“Full-time employment has now increased by around 322,000 persons since December 2016, and makes up the majority of the 393,000 net increase in employment over the period,” he said.
Despite more people finding work, the national unemployment rate actually rose slightly by 0.1 per cent from November after 20,000 people lost their employment seasonally adjusted.
The job participation rate stayed at 65.5 per cent which is the highest it has been since early 2011.
The job figures come at the same time as the Australian dollar is pushing the US80c mark after rising sharply in recent weeks.
The Federal Government are welcoming the figures, and Commonwealth Bank economist Gareth Aird said they were ‘phenomenal’.
“The big lift in employment over December once again bettered consensus and once again the underlying detail was robust,” he told The Age.
The next challenge for the Government in coming months will be to try and find some of these jobs a wage rise after years of stubborn and sluggish wage growth.
