Australia added 178.8k jobs in October, much better than expectation of -30.0k decline. Full-time jobs rose 97k while part-time jobs rose 81.8k. Unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 7.0%, better than expectation of 7.2%. Also, participation rate jumped notably by 0.9% to 65.8%. Monthly hours worked jumped 21million or 1.2%.
Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labour Statistics at the ABS, said: “This strong increase means that employment in October was only 1.7 per cent below March, and reflects a large flow of people from outside the labour force back into employment. Encouragingly, the rise in employment was also accompanied by a strong rise in hours worked, particularly in Victoria, where hours increased by 5.6 per cent.”
