Unemployment rises
Employment increased by an estimated +39,000 persons in August, seasonally adjusted, after the previous month's surprise decline, with part-time employment (+46,000) accounting for all of the monthly gain.
Looking through a bit of the monthly noise, the 3-month average employment gain was a solid +34,000.
It's worth noting that a lot of people have been taking second jobs (i.e. jobs growth has been higher than the growth in employed persons).
The estimated growth in the adult population was steady over the year to August at a still-elevated +388,000 or +1.7 per cent.
The participation rate also increased in the month of August by 0.2 percentage points to 67.1 per cent.
As such the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 4.48 per cent to 4.65 per cent (reported as 4.6 per cent), which was the highest unemployment rate since November 2021.
Measures of underutilisation weren't much changed.
The wrap
The unemployment rate was higher than expected in August, and indeed was just a tiny fraction away from rounding up to 4.7 per cent.
This was also above the Reserve Bank's forecast trajectory for the unemployment rate, though the central bank is still expected to hike interest rates by 25 basis points towards the end of this month.
In other news, the AFR reported that the rescue deal for the developer Bathla has fallen through, with work set to be paused across many Sydney construction sites.
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