Jobs growth in February bounced back after a weak result in January, but not enough to bring down the national unemployment rate, official figures show.
Australia’s unemployment rate remained steady at 6.0 per cent in February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics monthly report shows.
South Australia’s rate, however, rose from 6.6 per cent to 6.7 per cent.
The trend estimate of unemployment in the State remains unchanged on 6.7 per cent, the highest of the mainland states.
While the national rate remained steady the ABS figures show the number of people employed increased by 47,300 to 11,530,800 in February.
The increase in employment was due to increased full-time employment, up 80,500 people to 8,049,900, offset by decreased part-time employment, down 33,300 to 3,480,900.
The increase in total employment was driven by increases in male and female full-time employment and male part-time employment.
The number of people unemployed increased by 9,800 people to 742,200 in February.
The ABS reported the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 64.8 per cent in February.
The seasonally adjusted underemployment rate was 7.4 per cent in February 2014. Combined with the unemployment rate of 6.0 per cent, the latest seasonally adjusted estimate of total labour force underutilisation was 13.5 per cent in February, based on unrounded estimates.
From a state election perspective, the number of unemployed South Australians has increased from 45,000 at the 2010 election to today’s figure of 56,000, while those in jobs has increased from the 2010 figure of 795,000 to 798,000.
