Aussie labour market still holding up well

Employment holds up

Employment growth was lower than expected in October, at around +15,900.

Still that comes off the back of a string of strong results, and total employment rose to a fresh record high of 14,537,500, seasonally adjusted. 

Despite the slowdown, employment was still +2.7 per cent higher than a year earlier, for an increase of 387,100. 

The number of unemployed persons rose by 8,300, to a total of 625,800.

This nudged the unemployment rate slightly up from 4.08 per cent to 4.13 per cent, but still this remains lower than was reported for the month of July (4.23 per cent, seasonally adjusted).  

The growth in monthly hours worked was softer, increasing only +0.1 per cent over the month.

Still, the Reserve Bank will be keenly monitoring youth unemployment and the underemployment rate, and there's been no deterioration to speak of here.

In fact, the underemployment and underutilisation measures have been surprisingly upbeat throughout the whole of 2024 calendar year to date. 

At the state level, this was a massive month for Queensland, with employment growing by +1.3 per cent, but there wasn't so much action elsewhere. 

Queensland has a very low unemployment rate of only 3.9 per cent, while Victoria's unemployment rate is a fair bit higher now at 4½ per cent. 

The Aussie dollar moved slightly lower from 64.9 to 64.8 US cents on the slightly softer figures, but it's not much of a change to the outlook overall. 

James Foster ran through the detailed figures here.

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