Australia employment contracted -227.7k in May, nearly double of expectation of -125.0k. After the decline, 12.2m people were employment. Full-time jobs dropped -89.1k to 8.54m. Part-time jobs dropped -138.6k to 3.62m. Unemployment rate rose 0.7% to 7.1%, worse than expectation of 7.0%. That’s also the highest level in 19 years since October 2001. Participation rate also dropped -0.7% to 62.9%.
“The ABS estimates that a combined group of around 2.3 million people – around 1 in 5 employed people – were affected by either job loss between April and May or had less hours than usual for economic reasons in May,” Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS said.
