South Australia’s trend unemployment rate remained steady at 6.5 per cent in December, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said today.
Seasonally adjusted, the rate fell from 6.6 per cent to 6.5 per cent, equal to Victoria. Only Tasmania had a higher unemployment rate, with 6.7 per cent of job-seekers out of work.
South Australia’s seasonally adjusted participation rate had the second largest decrease (0.4 per cent) in the nation, which was only topped by Tasmania (0.6 per cent).
Nationally, the unemployment rate defied economists’ expectations, falling to 6.1 per cent in December, thanks to a surprise surge in full time jobs.
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The total number of people with jobs rose 37,400 to 11.679 million in December, much better than the 5,000 jobs economists had expected, according to an AAP survey.
Full-time employment rose by 41,600 to 8.105 million in December and part-time employment was down 4,100 to 3.574 million.
The Australian dollar soared on the news.
The local currency was worth 82.02 US cents shortly after the data were released at 11.30am AEDT on Thursday, up from 81.48 cents just before.
– with AAP
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