Australia's seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate rises to 3.7% in Apr

Employment dropped by around 4,000 and the number of unemployed increased by 18,000, Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said.

“The small fall in employment followed an average monthly increase of around 39,000 people during the first quarter of this year,” he was quoted as saying by an ABS release.

Similarly, the employment-to-population ratio fell by 0.2 percentage points to 64.2 per cent and the participation rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 66.7 per cent.

“Even with these falls, both indicators were still well above pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels and close to their historical highs in 2022,” Jarvis said.

The seasonally-adjusted underemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point to 6.1 per cent, following a 0.4 percentage point increase in March.

"The underemployment rate is still low in historic terms, around 2.6 percentage points lower than before the pandemic, and underpinned by faster growth in hours worked than employment," Jarvis said.

The underutilisation rate, which combines the unemployment and underemployment rates, rose slightly to 9.8 per cent, and remained 4.2 percentage points lower than in March 2020.

In seasonally-adjusted terms, full-time employment in the country decreased by 27,100 to 9,726,500 and part-time employment rose by 22,800 to 4,155,600.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)