Employment grew by 0.07 per cent in June, consistent with the average growth rate over the last six months, according to trend figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.
The latest Labour Force data shows over the past month, trend employment increased by 8,300 persons to 11,933,400 persons. Trend full-time employment increased by 700 persons after falling for the previous four months. Part-time employment increased by 7,600 persons, its weakest monthly growth since August 2014.
“The figures show that hours worked by employed people declined, but not by as much as in previous months. This reflects the small increase in trend employment. We are yet to see an increase in hours worked in 2016,” said General Manager of the ABS’ Macroeconomic Statistics Division, Bruce Hockman.
The trend unemployment rate remained steady at 5.7 per cent. The participation rate also remained steady at 64.8 per cent.
“Trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market,” Mr Hockman said.
The seasonally adjusted number of persons employed increased by 7,900 in June 2016. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for June 2016 increased 0.1 percentage points to 5.8 per cent and the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate increased by less than 0.1 percentage points to 64.9 per cent.
