Thursday 12th July 2012

Job market softens

by Alan Thornhill

Australia’s job market has weakened, with full time employment shrinking and unemployment rising.

The Bureau of Statistics reports that the number of Australians employed fell by 27,000 last month, while the number unemployed rose by 7,200.

This caused the nation’s unemployment rate to rise to 5.2 per cent, from 5.1 per cent in May.

Significantly, the Bureau noted that the decrease in employment was driven mainly by a big fall in the number of full time jobs available.

It said 33,500 full time jobs disappeared last month.

That was partly offset by a rise of 6,600 part time jobs.

However the critically important workforce participation rate fell by 0.2 per centage points to 65.2 per cent.

And the total number of hours worked, during June, fell by 19.6 million.

The Bureau said that men and women had both been heavily affected, by shrinkage in the nation’s job market, last month.

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Alan Thornhill is a parliamentary press gallery journalist.
Private Briefing is updated daily with Australian personal finance news, analysis, and commentary.

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