Australian February March unemployment rate 3.8% (vs. 3.9% expected)

The Australian employment report has spat out volatile m/m figures and that continued today. After the huge jump in jobs in February the March figure was a negative.

Over the year employment grew 2.4%, which is indicative of a tight labour market. But, not as tight as it was.

This report will be unlikely to prompt the RBA to cut any sooner, eyes at the Bank are mainly on the inflation rate. The RBA does not want to sacrifice too much of the substantial gains for the labour market but the dip in jobs reported in March is nowhere near as big as the surge in employment in February.

AUD is little changed after the data.

More:

• Hours worked rose 0.9% m/m and 1.7% y/y
• Total number unemployed people is above 600k for the third consecutive month
• underemployment rate fell 0.1% to 6.5%
• underutilisation rate (this combines the unemployment and underemployment rates) stayed at 10.3%, which is +0.5% up from March of 2023
• trend jobless rate remained at 3.9% for the fifth month in a row
  3 (the figures above are the seasonally adjusted, not the trend)

ABS:

• “In trend terms, employment grew by 29,000 people (0.2 per cent) and hours worked remained stable in March.
• The latest trend data showed that hours worked had fallen during the second half of 2023 but had changed little since December 2023.”

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.