The latest Labour Force data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown that the national unemployment rate fell to 4.9% in June 2021 in seasonally adjusted terms, reaching its lowest level since December 2010. This rounds out eight consecutive months of declines, with the results partially alleviating concerns that the downward trend in the unemployment rate would reverse following the conclusion of the JobKeeper support package at the end of March 2021. The data showed that the number of employed persons in Australia is 1.2% higher than at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Australian economy added 29,000 jobs in June, while the number of unemployed people fell by 22,000, to 679,000. The number of unemployed people peaked just above one million in July 2020, when the national unemployment rate hit 7.4%. The participation rate, which refers to the number of Australians with a job, or seeking one, remained unchanged at 66.2% in June, just below the all-time high of 66.3% reached in March 2021.
The unemployment rate has fallen faster than expected, with the Reserve Bank of Australia previously predicting that the unemployment rate would not reach 5% until the second half of 2023. Job vacancies also remain at a record high, signifying the possibility of a further decline in the national unemployment rate in the coming months. However, the reported figures do not yet reflect the current lockdown situations in New South Wales and Victoria. During Victoria’s fourth lockdown in early June, the state experienced an 8.4% decline in the number of hours worked while only recording a 0.3% decline in employment. The national unemployment rate averaged 6.24% over 2020-21, up from 5.63% in 2019-20.
