Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 5.8% in February 2021, 0.8% higher than a year ago, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The number of unemployed people increased by 109,500 over the year to February 2021 to a total of 805,200. Over the month, this decreased by 69,900.

When compared to the previous month, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell by 0.5%.

The youth unemployment rate increased by 0.5% over the year to February 2021 to 12.9%. This was down 1.1% compared to the previous month.

At the same time, employment decreased by 1,800 people, less than 0.1%, in February 2021 when compared to the same period last year to a total of 13.00 million people. Month-on-month this was an increase of 88,700 people.

In seasonally adjusted terms, in February 2021, monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 0.2% over the year and increased by 102 million hours over the month to 1.76 billion hours.

The labour force participation rate stood at 66.1%, up 0.2% over the year.