Australian employment report for April

Employment Change: +4.0K for a substantial miss

  • expected 30K, prior 17.9K

Unemployment Rate: 3.9% in line (participation rate, see below, down)

  • expected 3.9%, prior 4.0%

Full-Time Employment Change: +92.4K is impressive

  • prior was 20.5K

Part-Time Employment Change: -88.4K

  • prior was -2.7K

Participation Rate: 66.3%

  • expected 66.4%, prior was 66.4%

A huge gain in full-time jobs and the huge drop in part-time jobs is net a positive.

The jobless rate is at its lowest since August of 1974.

  • underemployment rate 6.1% is at its lowest since September 2008.
  • underutilisation rate at 10%, its lowest since August 2008

Monthly hours worked increased by 23 million hours.

Australia unemployment rate 19 May 2022

The mainstream headline from these reports is the unemployment rate. As I said above, its hit its lowest since 1974. The headlines will be good for this report. The internals of the report are good also. Up90-odd thousand full-time jobs at the expense of a loss of 88-odd thousand part-time jobs is a big net win.

AUD/USD is not much changed. Its been weak on global developments:

aud

audusd 19 May 2022