Despite a tick up in the headline, seasonally adjusted, unemployment rate in June to 6.0% (from an upwardly revised 5.9% in May), the data is certainly not all bad. Jobs increased by 15,900 in the month with a decline of 3,800 full-time jobs more than offset by 19,700 new part-time positions. This is not altogether surprising when we consider that May saw a 22,200 lift in full-time positions. The increase in the headline unemployment rate was largely as expected, although a tick up in the Participation Rate to 64.7 meant the rate lifted despite better than expected job creation. In the past 7 months Trend employment growth has averaged 14,900 a month which is a vast improvement on the 2,800 pm rate of increase seen in the prior 8 months. Unfortunately population growth means that, all other things being equal, jobs need to expand at a rate closer to 20,000 pm to start to make any real impact on the unemployment rate.
QLD saw a similar picture. The headline unemployment rate increased slightly to 6.3% with 2,100 jobs created. As was the case nationally , a strong increase in full-time positions in May was partly reversed out in June; full-time positions fell 10,500 after +19,900 in May. Trend jobs creation in QLD has averaged 6,000 pm for the past 7 months but population increases requires growth over 6,300 pm to nudge the unemployment rate lower. QLD’s participation rate remained stable at 66.3 in June.
Regional jobs data will be released next Thursday at which time we shall be releasing our new Conus Trend series for employment and unemployment rates for ALL Queensland regions (ABS SA4 level).