Australian workforce sheds more jobs than expected in blow for Joe Hockey
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Version 0 of 1. The Australian workforce shed more jobs than expected in April, official figures showed on Thursday, dealing a blow to treasurer Joe Hockey ahead of next week’s budget. The number of people employed decreased by 2,900 to 11,724,600 in April driven by a fall in full-time work for men (down 47,900) and part-time employment for women (down 10,700), the Australian Bureau of Statistics said. Economists had predicted a rise of 10,000. Related: Will Joe Hockey use the budget to stimulate a stalling economy? The jobless rate increased 0.1 percentage points to 6.2% compared with March. The poor numbers will increase the pressure on Hockey to introduce measures to boost jobs in his budget on Tuesday. However, Hockey will be encouraged that the estimates for the number of people in work in March were revised upwards with 10,000 more people in work than previously believed. It means the economy added nearly 50,000 new roles in March, according to the ABS, but some observers said doubt remained about the reliability of the figures. The ABS was forced to withdraw its data for July and August last year and the federal government pledged more resources for the bureau. The statistical adjustment helped the Australian dollar recover from an initial sell-off on the release of the figures. It was trading at US79.7c at midday. Hockey will also note that the trend growth in employment was up. The labour force participation rate remained steady in April at 64.8% while the aggregate monthly hours worked increased in April 2015, up 17.8m hours (1.1%) to 1,651.9m hours. The number of people unemployed increased by 7,000 to 769,500 in April 2015. This was driven by people who looked for part-time work only, which increased by 9,800 to 228,000. All figures are seasonally adjusted. JP Morgan economist Ben Jarman said April’s jobs data represented a “small pullback” after March’s surprisingly positive result. “Generally when you have gross domestic product growing below its potential rate you expect to see the unemployment rate rising,” Jarman said. “The fact that it went up marginally is consistent with the economy a little bit below its potential rate, but not dramatically.” He said the small increase in the unemployment rate was in line with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to cut rates by 0.25 percentage points on Tuesday. “They’ve taken that decision to give things a helpful nudge along.” |