SA unemployment rises
South Australia was the only state or territory in Australia where unemployment rose in September, taking it from the equal lowest jobless rate to the second highest in a month.
Labour force figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released on Thursday showed South Australian unemployment rose by 0.4 percentage points to 4.3 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis in September.
It comes after the state recorded the equal lowest unemployment in the country last month, seeing the biggest decrease of anywhere in Australia.
Victoria recorded the highest unemployment rate at 4.4 per cent in September, with the seasonally adjusted national rate seeing a 0.1 percentage point decrease to 4.1 per cent.
The trend unemployment rate stayed at 4.1 per cent for the fourth month in a row.
The Australian Capital Territory recorded the biggest decrease in unemployment, down by 0.6 percentage points to 3.4 per cent, after last month being equal lowest with South Australia and Western Australia.
South Australian underemployment is no longer the worst in the country after decreasing by 0.2 percentage points, but is second only to Tasmania, at 7.5 per cent compared to Tasmania’s 7.9 per cent.
Nationally, the employment-to-population ratio remained at a high of 64.4 per cent, as the participation rate saw a new high of 67.2 per cent.
ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said the growth in employment in the last year was “growing faster than the civilian population growth of 2.5 per cent”.
“The record employment-to-population ratio and participation rate shows that there are still large numbers of people entering the labour force and finding work in a range of industries, as job vacancies continue to remain above pre-pandemic levels,” Jarvis said.
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“While the number of unemployed people fell slightly to 616,000 in September, overall the number of unemployed people has risen by around 90,000 people since September 2023.
“Despite this rise over the last year, there are still around 93,000 fewer unemployed people than there were just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the unemployment rate was at 5.2 per cent.”
During September, the number of full-time employees nationally increased by 29,800 to 10,029,100, as part-time employee numbers went up 14,500 to 4,485,100.
