Australia’s unemployment fell to lowest level in 20 months

Australia’s unemployment rate fell to 20-month low in November, following the strongest two-month period of job growth in 28 years.
Unemployment dropped to 5.8%, while analysts forecasted a rise of 5.9% to 6%.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the total number of people with new jobs increased to 71 4000 in November and another 56 000 in October. Full-time employment is increased to 41 600, while the number of part-time jobs is up by 29 7000.

The Australian dollar spiked back above US73c on the news before falling back slightly to US72.86 at 5pm AEDT.

The employment figures represent the strongest two-month period of jobs growth since December 1987 and January 1988 and indicated that the Australian economy was coping better than expected with the end of the mining investment boom.

However, analysts cautioned that the data was volatile and noted that the ABS said that 52 700 of the job gains were due to a rotation in the groups of people being sampled for the monthly reading.

The jobs market seemed nevertheless to be strengthening, economists said.

“Even allowing for (the rotation of those being sampled), there was some improvement in hiring versus market expectations of a modest correction,” said Kieran Davies, Barclays chief economist for Australia.