- Bruce Hockman, Australian Bureau of Statistics
The Australian labour market continued its uptrend for the fourth consecutive month, with employers adding more workers than expected over the month of January. The official figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed that the number of employees topped analysts' expectations for a 9.7K rise, inching up 13.5K compared to an upwardly revised 16.3K surge registered in the preceding month. The upmove was mainly caused by a jump in part-time employment, which rose by 58.3K and managed to offset an abrupt drop in the number of full-time workers, which plummeted 44.8K. In the meantime, the jobless rate came in at 5.7%, down from 5.8% in December, as the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate fell to 64.6% from 64.7%, which resulted in total number of unemployed diving to 720.02K. The male jobless rate took a fall, sliding to 5.5%, the lowest point in nearly 4 years, whilst the female unemployment held at the same level of 5.8% in the reported month.
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