By IANS,
Melbourne : Registering a record growth in its employment rate, Australia is creating 1,100 full-time jobs each day in various sectors, according to latest data.
The country piled on an extra 37,500 full-time jobs in April, following on from 37,400 in March which was revised up from an earlier estimate of 30,100, said the employment figures released Thursday.
But, at the same time it lost 3800 and 9700 part-time jobs as employers made positions full-time, The Age reported.
Since December, Australia has put an extra 110,000 people into work creating jobs at an annualised pace of 3 percent, well in excess of the 2.5 per cent forecast in this week’s budget.
Though many extra jobs were created in industries such as administrative services, warehousing and accommodation, Australia’s biggest and fastest-growing employer was the health and aged care industry, propelled by population ageing.
Around 20,000 of the new jobs were created in Victoria and another 30,000 in NSW which is replacing Victoria as the engine room of job creation as its labour market picks up.
Victoria’s unemployment rate remains the nation’s lowest after Western Australia at 5.3 percent. The NSW rate climbed from 5.5 to 5.8 percent as more people decided it was the right time to seek work.
“It’s what you expect to see in the early phases of an upswing,” said ICAP Securities economist Adam Carr.
“During a slowdown people tend to leave the job market or postpone entering it due to the difficulty of finding the job they want. In effect they fall out of the labour market, especially in two-income families.
“As the economy picks up these people feel more optimistic and start looking again. It causes a blip in the unemployment rate but it’s nothing to be worried about,” Carr added.
Australia’s unemployment rate stayed broadly steady at around 5.4 percent as an extra 40,200 people looked for work.
The figures show that for the first time more than 11 million Australians were in work, six million men and five million women.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard paid tribute to the “employers and unions who helped steer Australia through the global financial crisis by keeping workers engaged in the labour market”.
She said the budget forecast of an unemployment rate of 4.75 percent by June next year was in reach.