In February 2017, Australia`s unemployment rate rose from 5.7% to 5.9% and nearly 6400 more lost their jobs.
Of course, there is good news in detail: across Australia, full-time jobs added 27100 jobs in February 2017, while part-time jobs fell by 33500-which led to a rise in unemployment.
While the number of full-time jobs increased, the total number of hours worked in February 2017 fell 1.2 percent to just 1.66 billion hours.
The data showed that the participation rate remained stable at 64.6%.
The Bureau also highlighted more stable trend data (monthly statistical fluctuations). Data show that the trend unemployment rate remains stable at 5.8%.
"over the past year, we have seen a relatively stable trend in unemployment, basically between 5.7 percent and 5.8 percent."
At the same time, Australia`s underemployment rate has not fluctuated much over the past two years, although the 8.7 percent underemployment rate is now at a very high level.
"of course, Australia`s underemployment rate is also the highest on record, but it hasn`t changed much over the past two years."
