Breaking: Unemployment rate reaches post-COVID era high of 4.6pc in August
The national unemployment rate rises to 4.6 per cent, up from 4.5 per cent in July, in seasonally adjusted and trend terms.
In August, Australia's unemployment rate surged to a post-COVID high of 4.6 percent, marking the highest figure since the COVID-19 pandemic began. This marks a rise from 4.5 percent in the previous month of July. The seasonally adjusted and trended rate is the highest it has been in the post-COVID era.
RBA governor Michele Bullock suggested that an unemployment rate between 4.5 and 5 percent would provide sufficient relief to the labor market to ease inflation pressures. Recently, four major banks and the majority of money market traders have forecasted that the RBA will raise interest rates next week to control economic activity and combat inflation.
Despite these expectations, data from August reveals that Australia's labor force expanded by 67,700 individuals. This increase pushed the participation rate back up to 67.1 percent, from 66.9 percent in July. The participation rate has now reached near its all-time high of 67.2 percent. The growth in the labor force was driven by an additional 39,500 people finding employment and 28,200 more individuals being registered as unemployed.
Written by urgent.news from ABC News AU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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