Jobless rate hits 3.4 per cent: ABS

| August 18, 2022

By Poppy Johnston in Canberra

Australia’s unemployment rate has dropped to 3.4 per cent, with 20,000 jobs added.

“The fall in unemployment in July reflects an increasingly tight labour market, including high job vacancies and ongoing labour shortages, resulting in the lowest unemployment rate since August 1974,” Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, said.

Mr Jarvis also said there were fewer unemployed people in July than there were job vacancies in May.

The latest labour force figures follow a sharper-than-expected drop in the jobless rate in June, with unemployment sinking to its lowest rate in 48 years.

The record-low unemployment meant there was effectively one unemployed person for every vacant job, which is being felt by employers around the country as they struggle to find staff.

The July results were in line with expectations, with most predicting jobless and participation rates to remain steady or to dip slightly.

This includes the Reserve Bank of Australia, which anticipated a fall in the unemployment rate in light of strong demand for labour and high numbers of open jobs.

Analysts broadly expected to see between 20,000 and 25,000 jobs added, and the unemployment rate remaining unchanged or dropping marginally.

There are signs the pace of recruitment at small- and medium-sized businesses is slowing, with Employment Hero data showing the number of employees added fell by 0.1 per cent between June and July.

“This is most evident among smaller enterprises that have experienced a contraction in employee size over the past month,” Employment Hero CEO and founder Ben Thompson said.

However, the number of people employed by small- and medium-sized businesses is still growing, up 7.7 per cent from July last year.

Job ad numbers have also started declining, according to June SEEK data, although volumes were still well above pre-pandemic levels.

Accounting, trades and services, design and architecture, legal, and insurance and superannuation roles were the only industries to see growth in job ad numbers between May and June.

The ABS also released average weekly data on Thursday, which showed the average weekly earnings from wages and salaries rose by 1.9 per cent to $1769.80 annually to May.