The Australian economy has recorded another month of employment gains and this time it was mostly in the form of full-time jobs. The ABS has released employment estimates which indicated the total number of people employed in Australia in either full-time or part-time work increased by 54,200 during August, which is more than the expected figure of 20,000.
Bond yields rose immediately after the release of the figures. By the end of the day, 3 year bond yields had increased from 2.03% to 2.07% and 10 year bond yields had added 6bps to 2.73%. In the currency market the Aussie added 0.35 U.S cents to 80.1 U.S. cents.
The total number of work hours across the whole economy increased by 0.4% when compared to July, as 40,100 more full-time jobs and 14,100 part-time jobs were created. On a 12 month basis aggregate hours worked grew by 2.6% as 251,200 full-time and 74,500 part-time positions were created.
The unemployment rate has been stuck around 5.6% since October 2016 and there are two factors behind this. Firstly, the participation rate increased. At the end of October 2016 it was 64.4% but by the end of August it was 65.3%, up from July’s 65.1%. The second factor is the total population. The Australian population grew by around 250,000 to 24.65 million, which is just over 20,000 persons per month. While not every additional person is part of the workforce, nearly two-thirds of them are or will be.