Yahoo Finance 15,000 jobs gone in December: Unemployment at 3.5%
Unemployment was at 3.5 per cent in December after 15,000 jobs were lost.
The unemployment rate remained steady at 3.5 per cent in December, in line with November, after jobs figures were adjusted, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
ABS head of labour statistics Lauren Ford said employment decreased by around 15,000 people and the number of unemployed people rose by 6,000.
The reason employment dropped by 15,000, but the number of unemployed only rose by 6,000 was because the ABS only considered those actively looking for work in their figures.
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"The seasonally adjusted participation rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 66.6 per cent in December, back to around where it was in October,” Ford said.
“Despite this slight fall from its historic high, it finished the year 0.8 percentage points higher than its pre-pandemic level.”
While 15,000 people lost work in December, that came after 58,000 jobs were added in November, and average monthly growth of around 40,000 people between August and November 2022.
The amount of hours Aussies were working fell by 0.5 per cent for the second month in a row after peaking in October last year.
"The falls in employment and hours worked in December followed strong growth through 2022, with an annual employment growth rate of 3.4 per cent and hours worked increasing by 3.2 per cent,” Ford said.
"The strong employment growth through 2022, along with high participation and low unemployment, continues to reflect a tight labour market.”
Even though hours worked grew during 2022, there continued to be more people than usual working reduced hours due to illness.
"In December, we saw the number of people working reduced hours due to illness increasing by 86,000 to 606,000, which is over 50 per cent higher than we would usually see at this time of the year," Ford said.
There are more than 13.7 million employed people in Australia, most of which live in New South Wales (4.3 million), followed by Victoria (3.5 million) and Queendland (2.7 million).
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