Unemployment rises to 4.5%

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is now at its highest level since late 2021, the ABS has said.

Earlier today (Thursday, 16 October), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) announced that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 4.5 per cent in September, up from a revised 4.3 per cent in August.

ABS head of labour statistics Sean Crick said: “This is the highest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate recorded since November 2021.

“There were 34,000 more unemployed people in September. The number of employed people also grew, up 15,000 in the same period.

“As a result of these increases, the participation rate rose by 0.1 percentage points to 67.0 per cent, although this is below the record high of 67.2 per cent we saw at the beginning of the year.”

The number of unemployed males rose by 24,000 to 370,000, the ABS reported, while the number of unemployed females rose by 10,000 to 314,000.

Full-time employment rose by 9,000, with the number of full-time employed males increasing by 23,000, while the number of full-time employed females decreasing by 15,000.

Part-time employment rose by 6,000, with 19,000 more females undertaking such work, while the number of males employed part-time fell 13,000.

Elsewhere, the underemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage points to 5.9 per cent in September, which was 0.3 percentage points lower than September 2024, and 2.8 percentage points lower than March 2020.

Moreover, monthly hours worked rose by 0.1 per cent, reflecting similar monthly growth in people employed. The annual growth rate of hours worked and people employed were both 1.5 per cent, the ABS said.

“The trend unemployment rate remained at 4.3 per cent in September,” Crick said.

“In trend terms, the participation rate remained at 66.9 per cent in September, while the employment-to-population ratio stayed at 64.0 per cent.”

The underemployment rate was steady at 5.9 per cent, and the underutilisation rate remained at 10.2 per cent.

The employment-to-population ratio has remained steady at 64 per cent.