Labour market report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for June

  • Employment Change: 50.9K expected 16.5K, prior rev to 13.4K from 12.0K
  • Unemployment Rate: 5.4% expected 5.4%, prior 5.4%
  • Full Time Employment Change: 41.2K prior rev to -19.9K to -20.6K
  • Part Time Employment Change: 9.7K prior rev to +33.4K from +32.6K
  • Participation Rate: 65.7% expected 65.5%, prior was 65.5%

Employment up, a huge surge after a few months of lacklustre growth

Participation up

Unemployment rate unchanged while participation up

Not too shabby …

The above is seasonally adjusted data, the focus of the market, but it worthwhile reviewing the 'trend' data also::

The trend unemployment rate was 5.4%

  • "Over the year to June, the unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage points. This continues a gradual decrease in the trend unemployment rate from late 2014 and is the lowest rate since January 2013," said the Chief Economist for the ABS, Bruce Hockman

Employment and hours

  • Trend employment increased by around 27,000 persons in June 2018
  • growth evenly split between full-time and part-time employment, with both increasing by over 13,000 persons
  • The trend participation rate remained steady at 65.6 per cent in June 2018, after the May figure was revised up.
  • Over the past year, trend employment increased by 318,000 persons or 2.6 per cent, which was above the average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years (2.0 per cent)

The trend monthly hours worked increased by 3.4 million hours or 0.2 per cent in June 2018, and by 2.6 per cent over the past year.

AUD marked higher on the data, up about half a big figure