{"id":595653,"date":"2026-05-21T05:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T05:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/595653\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T05:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T05:48:08","slug":"australias-unemployment-rate-jumps-to-4-5-in-tentative-signs-labour-market-is-buckling-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/595653\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s unemployment rate jumps to 4.5% in \u2018tentative signs labour market is buckling\u2019 | 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.<\/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

The surprise rise in unemployment will provide the Reserve Bank with more reason to hold off on a fourth rate hike at its next meeting in June, as central bank officials juggle worries about spiking inflation and the slowing economy.<\/p>\n

David Bassanese, the chief economist at Betashares, 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

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

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/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 its 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 was trading 1.7% higher in early afternoon trade.<\/p>\n

Financial markets were pricing in only a very small chance of a rate hike on 16 June, and an 80% probability of one by the end of the following RBA meeting on 11 August.<\/p>\n

More details soon \u2026<\/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-years, amid fears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-595653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}