Seasonally adjusted unemployment has held at 4.1 per cent for the first month of 2026, defying economists’ expectations that joblessness would tick up to 4.2 per cent.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday showed the participation rate remained at 66.7 per cent as employment increased to 14,703,800.
However, the employment to population ratio decreased slightly from 64 per cent in December to 63.9 per cent while the rate of underemployment – where a worker gets fewer hours than wanted – rose to 0.2 per cent to 5.9 per cent.
Trend unemployment also fell.
“The trend unemployment rate fell from 4.2 per cent in December to 4.1 per cent in January, as the number of unemployed has decreased for the fourth consecutive month,” ABS head of labour statistics Sean Crick said.
‘Trend employment and hours worked both grew by 0.2 per cent in January, while annually, hours worked grew faster than employment.”
More to come