By Oliver Gray
Investing.com - Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed that the Australian unemployment rate fell to 4.2% in December from 4.6% in the previous month, coming in below market expectations of 4.5%, posting the lowest reading since August in 2008 and signaling a strong economic resilience amid the current surge in coronavirus cases across the country.
Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS noted that "The latest data shows further recovery in employment following the large 366,000 increase in November."
However, the data pre-dates the peak of Australia's Omicron outbreak, which has caused significant business disruptions and a drop-off in consumer demand over the past month.
The number of unemployed people dropped 62,200 to 574,400, with the number of people looking for full-time work down by 40,600 to 378,400, and those looking for only part-time work declined 217,504 to 196,000. Meanwhile, employment increased 64,800 to a fresh record high of 13.24 million, easily beating market forecasts of a 43,300 gain, as full-time employment rose 41,500 to 9,094,400 and part-time employment went up 23,300 to 4,147,700. The participation rate remained unchanged at 66.1%.