Unemployment rate stays steady at 5.8%

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed that the rate of unemployment is steady with expected loss of around 1,000 jobs in December. The employment level rose by 17,600 in December with 18,500 less part-time jobs.

According to the consensus expectation, the employment growth in December was estimated to decrease to 10,000 jobs month-on-month, while the supposed unemployment rate was 5.9 percent. In November, the rate of unemployment was 5.8 percent, while it was 5.9 percent in October. The growth in jobs was 71,400 in November following 56,000 increment in October, accounting to strongest two-month period of growth of employment since 1980s.

The number of people participating in jobs or job hunt also decreased from 65.3 percent to 65.1 percent. Bureau of Statistics’ General Manager of macroeconomics statistics, Bruce Hockman, said the stable representation of trending figures reveal some good news for the job market in 2015. “The trend shows that around 312,000 more people were employed in December 2015 than in December 2014,” Hockman observed as quoted by the ABC.

“Full-time employment growth was stronger than part-time over the year, increasing by 186,600 people.”

The ABS also signalled that trending unemployment rate has declined to 5.8 percent from 6.2 percent over 2014. CommSec chief economist Craig James said that most economists have made wrong predictions of fall in jobs to 12,500. He added that the volume of demand in the services sector is what seemed missing while predicting rate of unemployment.

“Consumers are spending, buoyed by the gains in home prices over the past year and the boost to spending power provided by the lower petrol price,” he said. “Then there are demographics – an ageing population continues to create jobs in the healthcare sector, and the strength of the tourism sector is being under-estimated, almost half a million additional tourists visited our shores in 2015 compared with a year ago.”