Blaming Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the territory's 5.4 per cent unemployment rate in October, Ms Gallagher declared "enough is enough" for cuts to the public service in Canberra.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures issued on Thursday showed that last month, unemployment in the ACT was at its highest since July 2001 in trend terms.

Nationally, Australia's unemployment rate remained steady at a seasonally adjusted 6.2 per cent in October.

The ACT was the only state or territory to record a jump in the latest unemployment numbers.

The bureau also revised the trend figures for unemployment in the ACT in September, from the 4.6 per cent reported a month ago to 5.1 per cent. It is not clear what, if any, impact the bureau's recent problems with seasonal adjustment have had on this revision.

The only other change came in the Northern Territory, where the jobless rate fell from 4.1 per cent to 4.0 per cent in trend terms.

Tasmania has the highest unemployment rate in Australia, at a seasonally adjusted 7.2 per cent, while New South Wales stayed steady at 5.8 per cent.

Victoria's unemployment rate also stood still at 6.8 per cent, weeks before voters go to the polls in that state.

Thursday's figures come a month after the ACT lost its status as the jurisdiction with the lowest unemployment rate in the country. The gap between the ACT and Northern Territory is now 1.4 percentage points.

The ABS said the total number of unemployed people increased by 7100 to 772,100 nationally last month, while full-time employment rose to more than 8 million.

In the same period, part-time employment was down to 3.534 million.

The participation rate, which is a measure of workers and job seekers, rose to 64.6 per cent, from 64.5 per cent in September.

Ms Gallagher said the increase in unemployment should lead Prime Minister Tony Abbott to rethink cuts to government in Canberra ahead of next month's mid-year budget update.

She accused Liberal Senator Zed Seselja of being missing in action. Senator Seselja this week defended a 1.5 per cent increase for Australian Defence Force members, saying the federal budget needed urgent repair.

"I think Mr Abbott should see these and see the harm that a combination of facts are having on the ACT. It's also some of the cuts our budget has to take, it's the Mr Fluffy impact that we are going to see.

"I think the message from these unemployment figures is 'enough is enough'. The Commonwealth Government needs to see what is happening as a direct impact of its policies."

Ms Gallagher said opposition calls for further diversification of the ACT economy were shallow rhetoric.

Opposition treasury and economic development spokesman Brendan Smyth said the government had failed to promote private job creation amid federal cuts in the ACT.

"It would be very easy to blame the Abbott government, and yes these cuts are now still occurring ... but they started under Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd where 14,500 of the 16,500 jobs were first slated for removal from the public service," he said.

"The reality is the ACT must steer its own course. We must remove the significant boom and bust cycle that we have."

Mr Smyth said the Canberra business community wanted the government to commit to building a new convention centre, which would create construction and hospitality jobs.

He said the planned light rail line to Gungahlin wouldn't create significant long-term jobs.

"We know from reports something like 90 conventions were turned away last year because we either didn't have the capacity or the configuration of a convention centre that suited their needs.

"Call that two conventions a week: that's two hotels full of people a week that the ACT could have had," Mr Smyth said.

In June, the ACT government committed $1.5 million to get a new convention centre project to an investment-ready stage.