Australian unemployment falls to 3.6%

Australia’s unemployment fell from 3.7 pe rcent to 3.6 per cent in September, fresh data revealed on Thursday.

According to monthly labor force data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), there were 6,700 jobs added between August and September, reports Xinhua news agency.

Responding to the data, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that it takes the total number of jobs created since the governing Labor Party won power in May 2022 to 561,500.

“This is the most jobs created in the first term of any government on record, and we’re only halfway through the term,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“Unemployment, despite all of our economic challenges, is lower now than when we came to office.”

However, the ABS said that the biggest factor in the fall in unemployment between August and September was a drop in the number of people in the labour force.

In order to be classified as unemployed by the ABS, a person must be of working age, not in work and actively seeking employment.

The participation rate, which measures the portion of the working-age population who are in the labour force, fell from a record-high 67.0 per cent in August to 66.7 per cent in September.

“It is important to remember that a fall in unemployment does not always mean much higher employment,” Kate Lamb, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said in a media release.

“The fall in the unemployment rate in September mainly reflected a higher proportion of people moving from being unemployed to not in the labor force.”