Australia employment rose 115.2k in May, above expectation of 30.0k. Full time jobs grew 97.5k. Part-time jobs rose 17.7k. Unemployment rate dropped to 5.1%, down from 5.5%, much better than expectation of of 5.5%. Participation rate also rose 0.3% to 66.2%.
Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said May was the seventh consecutive monthly fall in the unemployment rate. “The unemployment rate fell to 5.1 per cent, which was below March 2020 (5.3 per cent) and back to the level in February 2020 (5.1 per cent). The declining unemployment rate continues to align with the strong increases in job vacancies”.
