Australia Jobs in May

20 June 2020 by News Desk   |   SHARE  

Australia Jobs were lost in May as employment decreased by 227,700 people between April and May, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The drop in employment, of close to a quarter of a million people, added to the 600,000 in April, brings the total fall to 835,000 people since March.

In two months, the percentage of people aged 15 and over employed in Australia decreased from around 62.5 per cent to around 58.7 per cent.

Unemployment increased by 85,700 people to 927,600, and the unemployment rate increased by 0.7 percentage points to 7.1 per cent (from a revised 6.4 per cent in April and 5.2 per cent in March).

Australia Jobs

As in April, the size of the increase in the unemployment rate in May was reduced by larger than usual numbers of employed and unemployed people leaving the labour force.

This was reflected in a further fall in the participation rate, down 0.7 percentage points to 62.9 per cent. The last time the participation rate was below 63 per cent was in January 2001.

Monthly hours worked fell 0.7 per cent in May, to be down 10.2 per cent since March (with the April fall revised up to 9.5 per cent).

The ABS estimates a combined group of around 2.3 million people – around 1 in 5 employed people – were affected by either job loss between April and May or had less hours than usual for economic reasons in May.

The underemployment rate decreased by 0.7 percentage points in May, to 13.1 per cent, but remained 4.3 points above March.

The under utilisation rate, which combines the unemployment and underemployment rates, rose to a new record high of 20.2 per cent.

Women continued to be more adversely affected by the labour market deterioration than men. Younger workers have also been particularly impacted.

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