Australia’s Unemployment Rate rose to 7.1% in May, as the economy lost a whopping 227,700 jobs, the latest data published by the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed this Thursday. The markets were expecting a job deduction of 125,000. The economy saw a whopping 607.4K job loss in April.
Meanwhile, full-time jobs came in at -89.1K in May vs. -220.5K seen in April. The part-time employment fell 138.6K versus -371.5K last. The participation rate dropped to 62.9% in the reported month versus 63.7% expected and 63.5% previous.
May key points (Source: ABS)
Seasonally adjusted estimates (Monthly change)
Employment decreased 227,700 to 12,154,100 people. Full-time employment decreased 89,100 to 8,540,000 people and part-time employment decreased 138,600 to 3,614,100 people.
Unemployment increased 85,700 to 927,600 people.
Unemployment rate increased 0.7 pts to 7.1%.
Underemployment rate decreased 0.7 pts to 13.1%.
Underutilisation rate increased less than 0.1 pts to 20.2%.
Participation rate decreased by 0.7 pts to 62.9%.
Monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 12.1 million hours to 1,604.7 million hours.
FX implication
The below-forecasts Australian jobs data combined with the downward revisions to the previous intensified the selling pressure on the AUD, knocking-off AUD/USD to a new two-day low of 0.6840. The spot is down 0.60% on the day.
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