Australian February unemployment rate 3.7% (vs. 4.0% expected)

That is a huge drop in the unemployment rate, and a huge number of jobs added.

The jobless rate has been assisted by the drop in the participation rate, but I wouldn’t go sullying the figures too much. Jobs data are volatile, but this is a great set of headlines. The Reserve Bank of Australia can keep rates higher for longer, if they wish to, on numbers like this.

• Underutilisation rate (combining unemployed and underemployed people) down to 10.3% (from January’s 10.8%).
• hours worked +2.8% m/m and +0.8% y/y

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All of the above numbers are the headline ‘seasonally adjusted’, and they’ve been volatile with reported issues surrounding figuring out the seasonality. The Australian Bureau of Statistics is wall-to-wall PhDs so you’d think they could figure it out. Anyway, sometimes the lesser-watched ‘trend’ numbers can be a better guide, and these are showing a steady unemployment rate and jobs added:

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