{"id":438023,"date":"2026-05-21T07:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438023\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T07:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:59:08","slug":"australias-unemployment-rate-jumps-to-4-5-with-markets-slashing-chance-of-more-interest-rate-hikes-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438023\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s unemployment rate jumps to 4.5% with markets slashing chance of more interest rate hikes | Unemployment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s unemployment rate has jumped to 4.5% in April to reach the highest in about four and half years, amid fears rising interest rates and the global oil crisis will smash economic growth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The surprise rise in unemployment will provide the Reserve Bank<\/a> with more reason to hold off on a fourth rate hike at its next meeting in June, as financial markets slashed the chance of more interest rate rises this year.<\/p>\n

The number of employed people unexpectedly fell by 18,600 in the month \u2013 the first decline this year \u2013 dragging the jobless rate up from 4.3%, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

The chief economist at Betashares, David Bassanese, said there were \u201ctentative signs suggesting the labour market is buckling\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, whether the RBA raises rates again depends on inflation outcomes and whether the labour market weakness evident in April was merely a quirky one-off or part of a softening trend,\u201d Bassanese said.<\/p>\n

Alt<\/a><\/p>\n

The chance of a rate hike at the next meeting on 7 June dropped to just 3%, from 13% before the release of the employment figures, according to financial market pricing provided by Westpac.<\/p>\n

Traders also slashed the probability of an interest rate rise by 12 August to 40%, from over 70%.<\/p>\n

Taylor Nugent , a NAB senior economist said he still anticipated another rate hike, but that the timing had been pushed back from June to August.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is now less urgency for the RBA board to lean more firmly against inflation risks,\u201d Nugent said.<\/p>\n

Graph titled: Jobless rate highest since late 2021<\/a><\/p>\n

The jobless measure remains below pre-pandemic levels of more than 5%, but has been drifting higher since a near 50-year low of 3.4% in late 2022.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s budget forecast that unemployment would peak at 4.5% by the middle of this year, although Treasury warned that it could reach 5% in a scenario where a more severe Middle East crisis pushes oil prices towards $US200 a barrel.<\/p>\n

Ryan Wells, an economist at Westpac, said the lift in the unemployment rate could be an early sign of the impending economic shock associated with the US-Israel war on Iran and this year\u2019s three interest rate rises.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [the shock] will still take time to fully work its way through household spending, into profit margins, to eventually impact decisions around investment and staffing further down the line,\u201d Wells said.<\/p>\n

The ABS data also showed the first drop in female employment since August 2025, as a higher than usual number of Australians remained unemployed in April.<\/p>\n

The Australian share market extended early gains on the release of the data as investors factored in a smaller chance of future interest rate hikes. The benchmark S&P\/ASX 200 index ended the day 1.5% higher to record its best session in six weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s unemployment rate has jumped to 4.5% in April to reach the highest in about four and half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-438023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}