Australian employment report, enormous job losses due the wide shut down in the month

Employment Change: -594.3K

  • -575K expected, prior +5.9K

Unemployment Rate: 6.2% showing not as dire as expected - sharp drop in the participation rate though … thus the unemployment rate reported is still bad news indeed

  • 8.2% expected, prior 5.2%

Full Time Employment Change: -220.5K

  • prior was -0.4K

Part Time Employment Change: -373.8k

  • prior was +6.4K

Participation Rate: 63.5% (lowest in 15 years)

  • expected 65.3%, prior was 66.0%

More:

  • hours worked down 8%
  • underemployment 13.7% (up 4.9points)

ABS:

  • 2.7 million people either lost their jobs or had their hours reduced
  • nearly half a million left the labour force, this limited the rise in unemployment ... without this the jobless rate would have been around 9.6%

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