Australian employment data for March
Employment Change: +26.1 K
- expected +17.0K, prior -0.7K revised from +0.3K
Unemployment Rate: 5.7%
- expected 5.9%, prior 5.8%
Full Time Employment Change, -8.8 K
- prior was +13.9K (revised from)+15.9K
Part Time Employment Change, +34.9 K
- prior was -14.7K (revised up from -15.6K)
Participation Rate, 64.9%
- expected 65.0%, prior was 64.9%
--
- The decline in 'full time' will be an immediate dampener on these results.
- Unemployment rate hits its lowest since 2013
Comments from the Australia Bureau of Statistics, focusing on the 'trend' data, not the seasonally adjusted (reported above) - the ABS says: The trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.
- Trend employment growth in Australia eased from the relatively strong growth seen in late 2015
- In March 2016, the annual trend employment growth rate was 2.2 per cent, down from 2.6 per cent in December 2015 . That's an increase of around 250,000 persons employed, compared with 300,000 persons.
- Over the past month, trend employment increased by 7,700 persons to 11,910,000 persons, which equated to a monthly growth rate of 0.10 per cent. This monthly growth rate was below the monthly average over the past 20 years (0.15 per cent), and down from the rate of 0.25 per cent in September 2015.
- The trend monthly hours worked in all jobs series decreased by 1.8 million hours (0.11 per cent) to 1,643.7 million hours
-
Uh-oh ... did anyone see the news wire with the +260.1K result .... D'oh!
