Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell 0.4% to 3.6% in May when compared to the same period last year, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

On a monthly basis, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell by 0.1%.

In May 2023, the number of unemployed persons totalled 515,900, down by 35,500 when compared to the previous year and down by 16,500 when compared to the previous month.

By state, South Australia recorded the highest unemployment rate on a seasonally adjusted basis in May at 4.0%. On the other hand, the lowest unemployment rate was seen in New South Wales (3.0%).

In trend terms, Australia’s unemployment rate stood at 3.5%, down 0.2% over the year with no change over the month.

Meanwhile, the number of employed persons in May stood at 14,011,800 on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was an increase of 3.4% over the previous year and up 0.5% over the prior month.

Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said, “With employment increasing by around 76,000 people and the number of unemployed decreasing by 17,000 people, the unemployment rate fell to 3.6%. The strong growth in employment in May followed a small decrease in April, around Easter, when employment fell by more than it usually would over the holiday period.”

“Looking over the past two months, the employment increases average out to around 36,000 extra employed people each month. This is still around the average over the past year of 39,000 people a month,” Jarvis said.

May’s labour force participation rate stood at 66.9%, up 0.2% over the year and up 0.1% over the month.

The employment to population ratio was 64.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis, up from 64.3% the prior month and from 64.0% the same period last year.

Monthly hours worked in all jobs stood at 1.94 billion, an increase of 4.8% over the year.