Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell 0.2% to 3.7% in April when compared to the same period last year, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

When compared to March 2023, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was up by 0.2%.

In March 2023, the number of unemployed persons totalled 528,000, down by 13,200 when compared to the previous year and up by 18,400 compared to the previous month.

By state, South Australia saw the highest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 4.3% while the Australian Capital Territory had the lowest at 3.0%.

In trend terms, the unemployment rate stood at 3.6% in April 2022, down 0.2% over the year and unchanged over the month.

The Bureau of Statistics also showed that on a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of employed persons totalled 13.87 million in April 2023 up 2.6% over the year.

Australia’s labour force participation rate stood at 66.7% in April, unchanged over the year and over the month.

The employment to population ratio stood at 64.2%, up from 63.9% in April 2022 and down from 64.4% in March 2023.

Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said, “With employment dropping by around 4,000 people and the number of unemployed increasing by 18,000 people, the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%. The small fall in employment followed an average monthly increase of around 39,000 people during the first quarter of this year.”

“Similarly, the employment-to-population ratio fell 0.2% to 64.2% and the participation rate decreased 0.1% to 66.7%, Jarvis added. ““Even with these falls, both indicators were still well above pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels and close to their historical highs in 2022.”

Meanwhile, monthly hours worked in all jobs totalled 1.97 billion, up 7.4% over the year and up 2.6% over the month.

“This was because fewer people than usual worked reduced hours over the Easter period,” Jarvis said. “The last time Easter and the survey period aligned like this was in 2015, when around 60% of employed people worked fewer hours than usual. This Easter it was only around 55% of employed people. This may reflect more people taking their leave earlier or later than usual, or that some people were unable to, given the high number of vacancies that we’re still seeing employers reporting.”