Employment stalls
Employment fell by 30,600 in April, comfortably missing market expectations.
Still, things are looking a lot better than a year ago, with total employment up by a massive 638,000 or 5.1 per cent year-on-year to 13.04 million.
Thanks to virus control, Australia is one of only a handful of countries to see employment above pre-COVID highs (alongside New Zealand, and South Korea).
The unemployment rate continued to ease, declining to 5½ per cent.
The pullback in April was largely seen in New South Wales, perhaps in part due to the JobKeeper expiry, but probably just as much due to a seasonal effect and the timing of the Easter period.
There are, however, few concerns in New South Wales with job advertisements surging to historic highs this month.
Hours worked increased at a double-digit percentage rate from a year earlier, due to the base effect, but were down by 0.7 per cent in the month of April.
Overall, a softish result which missed expectations, although there's nothing really here to suggest that the unemployment rate can't fall to 4 per cent next year, if the desire is there.
