Unemployment in Western Australia increased slightly last month, with the jobless rate ticking up by 0.1 percentage point while the national rate remained unchanged.
Unemployment in Western Australia increased slightly last month, with the jobless rate ticking up by 0.1 percentage point while the national rate remained unchanged.
WA’s unemployment rate rose to 5.6 per cent in April in seasonally adjusted terms, the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed today, while in trend terms the jobless rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 5.5 per cent.
WA experienced an increase in employment by 700 people last month, in seasonally adjusted terms, however the trend participation rate fell by 0.1 percentage point.
While full-time employment fell by 9,300 in the month, the number of part-time jobs was up by 20,200, lifting the total number of people with jobs by 10,800.
"There is jobs growth in the economy, but a lot of the strength is in the part-time jobs," AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver told AAP.
"So the quality of jobs is declining, which is consistent with the view that growth in the economy is not shooting the lights out."
The participation rate, which refers to the number of people either employed or actively looking for work, fell to 64.8 per cent in April.
Westpac senior economist Justin Smirk said a falling participation rate and the rise in part time jobs had kept unemployment steady.
"Today's numbers again highlight a weaker rate of participation than was anticipated, which has allowed the unemployment rate to be stable or even fall a bit," he said.
JP Morgan senior economist Tom Kennedy said the labour market had been expected to weaken after strong improvement in 2015, which was unsustainable.
"There's nothing in this data to suggest that there's anything particularly ugly going on in the labour market," he said.
