#article : Jobless rate at 30 year low

[Howie]

Jobless rate at 30-year low

Australia's official jobless rate has fallen, with figures just released for October showing unemployment stands at a seasonally-adjusted 4.6 per cent.

Prime Minister John Howard has welcomed the unemployment figure, even though there has been a fall in the number of people in work for the first time in nine months.

"Given the furious pace at which people have got jobs, some kind of correction of this kind was to be expected," he said.

"But fundamentally we still have unemployment and I expect this to be the case, generally speaking, for some time at a 30-year low."

Until the latest figures, 2006 had so far produced more than a 250,000 new jobs in Australia but the October labour force data has trimmed that back by 32,000.

During the month, almost 49,000 full-time jobs disappeared, while an extra 17,000 part-time positions were created.

But because far fewer people were looking for work, the official jobless rate has dropped to a new 30-year low of 4.6 per cent.

The federal Treasurer Peter Costello says while there has been a loss of jobs overall, it comes after months of exceptionally strong growth.

He says the Government was always expecting a correction.

"This will bounce around from month to month but if you look back over six months, we've been below 5 per cent for six months," he said.

"Ten years ago people would not have believed outcomes like this were possible."

Economists are divided on the significance of the figures but market interest rates have fallen and the Australian dollar has lost one-third of a cent to 76.73 US cents.
State by state

In Queensland the unemployment rate in October fell to 4 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms, down from 4.8 per cent in September.

In New South Wales the unemployment rate in October has fallen to 5.1 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms, down from 5.5 per cent in September.

In the ACT the unemployment rate has dropped to 2.6 per cent in trend terms, down from 2.7 per cent in September.

In Victoria the unemployment rate for October has risen to 4.8 per cent, in seasonally adjusted terms, up from 4.5 per cent in September.

Tasmania's unemployment rate has dropped to 6.5 in October in seasonally adjusted terms, down from 6.7 per cent in September.

In South Australia the unemployment rate has dropped to 4.6 per cent, down from 4.7 in September in seasonally adjusted terms.

In Western Australia the jobless rate has risen to 3.7 per cent in October, up from 3.5 per cent in September in seasonally adjusted terms

In the Northern Territory the unemployment rate has dropped to 3 per cent in trend terms, down from 3.4 per cent in September.

SA doing it's bit for employment

[Will]

I am not an economist, so I would like someone with some knowledge about it to explain to me something:

How can SA have economic growth of almost 0% and still have such a low unemployment rate? I would have thought that in an economy with such slow growth, the unemployment rate would be higher. For example in the recession of the early 1990's unemployment was around 12%.

I am confused????

[Howie]

Not sure about SA having an economic growth of almost 0%. I thought in order to have a low unemployment rate you'd have to create more jobs, or have less people eligible workforce (or a combination of both). I think the grey area, is people moving from unemployment to part time positions (which i believe they still statistically weigh the same as full time jobs).

[bdm]

We have near 0% growth, surely not any notable growth.

But our money isn't being invested for the future, is it? It's being peddled away!

[AtD]

Just quickly, because I am 90% though an economics degree.

The unemployment rate went down due to a fall in the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR). Basically, the ABS predicts the number of Australian citizens between the ages of 15 and 65, and calls that the Labour Force, its the potential number of people who could work. Then they predict the LFPR, which is the percentage of people in the labour force who are 'participating,' which is defined (in Aus) as someone who either worked or actively looked for work in the sample period.

Then, they predict the number of participating workers who are actually employed, which is defined as working at least one paid hour, or at least one unpaid hour for a family business, during the sample period. The percentage of people who have actively looked for work over the total active labour force is the unemployment rate.

Finally, they seasonally adjust the figures - many indicators such as unemployment follow an annual cycle and the ABS wants to predict the rate 'underneath' the cycle, so they add or subtract the predicted seasonal effect to the final figures.

In the last month, the number of people considered employed fell, but the number of people working fell by a greater rate, so the headline unemployment rate fell. That being said, it was only a 0.1% chage. The sample isn't very large and the definitions are very broad so I wouldn't put much weight on these latest figures. It could very easily be random sampling causing the change.

[bva]

i want to move back to adelaide when i return to oz (not melbourne or sydney) so i want to take the small possible positives from this latest business outook

http://business.unisa.edu.au/cid/