Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 4.9% in June 2021, down 2.4% when compared to June 2020, according to data from the Australia Bureau of Statistics.

When compared to the previous month, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell by 0.2%.

Australia’s JobKeeper Payment programme, its Covid-19 stimulus jobs package, ended on 28 March 2021.

The number of unemployed people decreased by 303,700 from June 2020 and was 22,000 lower than May 2021.

Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS said, “The unemployment rate fell to 4.9% in June. This was 0.4% below March 2020 (5.3%) and the lowest it has been since December 2010. The declining unemployment rate continues to coincide with employers reporting high levels of job vacancies and difficulties in finding suitable people for them.”

“The youth unemployment rate decreased by 0.5% to 10.2%, which was 1.4% below the rate at the start of the pandemic. The last time we saw a youth unemployment rate of 10.2% was in January 2009,” Jarvis added.

The labour force participation rate increased year-on-year by 2.1% to a rate of 66.2%. This was unchanged from the previous month.

Meanwhile, monthly hours worked in all jobs stood at 1.78 billion, up 6.8% over the previous year and down 1.8% from the previous month.