The strong recovery in full-time employment in October continued into November, albeit at a slower pace, especially outside Victoria.
After the huge 179,000 new jobs in October, a further 90,000 full and part-time jobs were (re) filled in November – a surprise given that many forecasts were for little or no change after the surge the month before.
Over 150,000 new jobs have been created in Victoria in October and November as the state rejoined the rest of the country and borders were gradually reopened.
According to the November Labour Force report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics the rise (the largest for a two month period in the history of the Labour Force series) was driven by a 2.1% increase (183,000 people) jump in full-time employment over the two months and accounted for around two thirds of the employment increase over the period (270,000 people).
The jobless rate fell to 6.8% from 7.0%, still 1.7 percentage points above where it was a year ago.
The strong report adds to the update on the budget which showed a fall in the projected deficit, debt and more revenues, partly because of better than expected job creation and lower JobKeeper number.
But more important, the ABS said the key measure of the participation rate is now back to pre COVID highs of 66.1% reported in January of this year.
“Early in the COVID period we saw large flows of people out of the labour force – 666,000 people between March and May – and the participation rate fell 3.3 percentage points over the two months,” according to the ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis.
“While the participation rate has recovered, there are still 138,000 fewer employed people than in March and 226,000 more unemployed people,” he pointed out.
The big driver of the improvement was again Victoria where the return to normality continued in November as more of the state and industry and business re-opened.
“Employment in Victoria increased by 74,000 people in November, following [October’s] increase of 82,000 people,” Mr Jarvis said.
“The gap between Victoria and the rest of Australia has narrowed considerably since September,” he added
The strong employment growth in Victoria saw the state’s participation rate increase by 1.2 percentage points in November, and remained 0.2 percentage points below March. The Victorian unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 7.1%.
Outside of Victoria though new jobs growth slowed – with around 13,000 new positions created.
The youth participation rate increased 1.5 percentage points to 69.7%, reaching its highest point since March 2009. The youth unemployment rate remained largely unchanged at 15.6%, alongside strong employment growth in the age group (21,200 people).
The underemployment rate fell by a further 1.0 percentage point in November to 9.4%, 4.4 percentage points below its peak in April 2020.
There are now 942,100 people unemployed across the country, 17,300 fewer than in October. There are still 240,700 more people out of work than in November last year.
The underemployment rate improved by 1 percentage point to 9.4% and 43 million extra hours were worked over the month.
There has been an 86% recovery in the number of hours worked since the worst of the crisis in May.
Youth unemployment remained stubbornly high, at 15.6 per cent, despite 21,200 people in the age bracket obtaining employment over the month and the participation rate for this sector now at its highest level since March 2009.
