Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.2% – the lowest level in 14 years
- Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to a 14-year low of 4.2 per cent
- Jobless rate for December showed a fall from November’s 4.6 per cent rate
- The unemployment level is now at the lowest point since June 2008 before GFC
Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to a 14-year low of 4.2 per cent as 64,800 jobs were created in just one month.
Employers are struggling to find staff with the lowest jobless level since June 2008, shortly before the worsening of the Global Financial Crisis.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data related to December as a surge in Omicron cases exacerbated labour shortages in the hospitality and construction sector.
It also marked a sharp drop from November’s already low 4.6 per cent level, when Australia’s border was still closed to international students and foreign workers.
Since mid-December, the federal government has allowed fully-vaccinated international students, skilled migrants and those on working holiday visas back into Australia for the first time since March 2020.
As recently as December, Treasury’s Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook forecast Australia’s jobless rate falling to 4.25 per cent by the end of June 2023 but this occurring even faster than expected.
Australia’s jobless rate fell to 4 per cent in February 2008 but it hasn’t fallen below that level since 1974.
Australia’s unemployment rates has fallen to a 14-year low of 4.2 per cent (pictured is a Bondi cafe in Sydney)
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