Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on the 16th showed that Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 4.5% in September from 4.3% in August, reaching its highest level since November 2021.
Sean Crick, ABS Director of Labor Statistics, said the number of unemployed people increased by 34,000 in September, while the number of employed people grew by 15,000. As a result, the labor force participation rate rose by 0.1 percentage point to 67% that month, lower than the historical high of 67.2% at the beginning of the year.
Data showed that the number of employed people in Australia increased by 0.1% month-on-month in September and by about 1.3% year-on-year. The number of unemployed people increased by about 5.2% month-on-month and by about 12.6% year-on-year. Monthly work hours increased by 0.5% month-on-month, and the underemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage points to 5.9%.
David Bassanese, chief economist at Australian investment management firm BetaShares, said that even allowing for monthly fluctuations, it is clear that the growth rate of job demand has slowed in recent months. Callum Pickering, Asia-Pacific economist at global job search website Indeed, said employment growth is no longer keeping pace with the growth of Australia’s working-age population. If this situation does not change, the unemployment rate will continue to rise.