2020.11.1900:30:00UTC+00Australia Unemployment Rate Climbs To 7.0% In October

The jobless rate in Australia came in at a seasonally adjusted 7.0 percent in October, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

That was below expectations for 7.2 percent and was up from 6.9 percent in September.

The Australian economy added 178,800 jobs last month for a total of 12,773,900 - far surpassing expectations for the loss of 30,000 jobs after shedding 29,500 jobs in the previous month.

Over the year to October, employment fell 1.0 percent or 132,300 people.

The participation rate jumped to 65.8 percent, beating forecasts for 64.7 percent and up from 64.8 percent a month earlier.

Unemployment increased by 25,500 to 960,900 people (and increased by 238,900 over the year to October 2020). The youth unemployment rate increased 1.0 pts to 15.6 percent (and increased by 3.1 pts over the year to October 2020).

Full-time employment increased by 97,000 to 8,643,700 people, and part-time employment increased by 81,800 to 4,130,200 people. Full-time employment decreased by 186,800 people and part-time employment increased by 54,500 people. Part-time employment over the past 12 months, increased 0.8 percentage points to 32.3 percent.

Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 20.6 million hours (1.2 percent) to 1,711 million hours. They were down 3.4 percent over the year, which is larger than the 1.0 percent decrease in employed people.

The underemployment rate decreased by 1.0 pts to 10.4 percent (1.9 pts higher than a year ago), while the underutilization rate decreased by 0.9 pts to 17.4 percent.