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Date: July 12 2012
Unemployment jumped 0.2 points in the ACT in June and the territory only just kept its hold on the claim to the nation's lowest jobless rate.
New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics issued today show the ACT's unemployment rate was 3.6 per cent in trend terms in June.
This compares with the 3.4 per cent for May reported in the previous data, although the bureau has also revised up the May result to 3.6 per cent in today's figures.
The mining boom is driving Western Australia's unemployment rate lower and lower. The resource rich state's trend unemployment rate was 3.7 per cent in June, down from the 3.8 per cent reported a month earlier.
The state's seasonally adjusted rate was even lower, at 3.5 per cent, although the bureau does not produce seasonally adjusted figures for the ACT meaning they cannot be compared.
Today's figures show there are 7800 people looking for work in the ACT, up from 7700 a month earlier. There were also increases in the number of people with full-time positions (up 200 to 154,100) and in the total number of people employed (up 300 to 208,400). The labour force participation rate - that is the proportion of people either working or actively looking for jobs - was steady at 72.5 per cent.
Despite the rise in the ACT's overall unemployment rate, the jobless rate for women has been on a year-long trend down. The female jobless rate was steady at 3.3 per cent in trend terms in June, and has either fallen or remained steady each month since July last year when it was 3.7 per cent.
The male unemployment rate was up 0.1 point in June, to 3.9 per cent in trend terms.
Nationally, the unemployment rate increased 0.1 per cent to 5.2 per cent in June, in seasonally adjusted terms.
"The ABS reported the number of people employed decreased by 27,000 to 11,500,500 in June. The decrease in employment was mainly driven by decreased full-time employment, down 33,500 people to 8,065,500, and was offset by an increase in part-time employment, up 6600 people to 3,435,000. The decrease in employment was driven by a decrease in both male and female full-time employment," the bureau said in a statement.
"The number of people unemployed increased by 7200 people to 631,300 in June."
The Australian dollar fell more than a third of a US cent following the release of worse-than-expected employment figures, and was trading at US102.03c just after the announcement.
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