Australia employment unexpected grew 5.9k in March, versus expectation of -40.0k contraction. Full-time employment dropped just 400 to 8.88m. Part-time employment rose 6.4k to 4.14m. Unemployment rate rose just 1% from 5.1% to 5.2%, much better than expectation of 5.5%. Participation rate was steady at 66.0%.
Chief Economist at the ABS, Bruce Hockman, said: “Today’s data shows some small early impact from COVID-19 on the Australian labour market in early March, but any impact from the major COVID-19 related actions will be evident in the April data.”
Unemployment rate
