{"id":68160,"date":"2025-08-15T05:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/68160\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T05:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:26:16","slug":"unemployment-rate-improves-in-july-falling-to-4-2-per-cent-as-full-time-jobs-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/68160\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment rate improves in July, falling to 4.2 per cent as full-time jobs surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s unemployment rate improved in July, edging lower to 4.2 per cent from 4.3 per cent in June, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n

Employment increased by nearly 25,000 people, driven by 60,000 full-time jobs, and the number of unemployed people also fell in the month.<\/p>\n

The ABS noted that female workforce participation hit a record high last month, as the number of full-time female workers grew by 40,000.<\/p>\n

The overall participation rate, which is the proportion of people in work or looking for a job, remained steady at 67 per cent.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank maintained its forecast for the unemployment rate to sit at 4.3 per cent in December this year.<\/p>\n

The headline figures were broadly in line with economists’ forecasts, which AMP’s deputy chief economist Diana Mousina described as a “nice little treat” given the monthly data can be volatile.<\/p>\n

“The labour market remains in solid shape,” Ms Mousina said.<\/p>\n

“The unemployment rate has risen at a glacial pace since it bottomed at 3.4 per cent [in October 2022].<\/p>\n

“The current unemployment rate at 4.2 per cent is very low relative to the historical average in Australia, and it last reached these current levels in 2007.”<\/p>\n

Other labour market metrics also improved in July, with the underemployment rate decreasing to 5.9 per cent and monthly hours worked rising.<\/p>\n

“Elevated levels of participation and [the employment-to-population ratio] confirm the healthy labour market while the easing in under-utilisation is consistent with the RBA’s view that the labour market errs a little tight,” RBC Capital Markets’ chief economist Su-Lin Ong noted.<\/p>\n

“The data remain consistent with our long-held view that the labour market is easing gently with demand\/supply moving towards balance.”<\/p>\n

Markets live updates: Follow the latest stock market and currency moves, plus business news and analysis, at the ABC News markets blog.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Female workforce participation hit a record high in July. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

While economist Callam Pickering agreed the labour market remained tight, he said the jobs growth over the year to date was “disappointing”.<\/p>\n

“Over the first seven months of 2025, Australian employment has increased by just 113,300 people and if that pace continues, then Australian employment may grow by fewer than 200,000 people this year,” Mr Pickering, from job search site Indeed, said.<\/p>\n

“Employment growth is no longer keeping pace with growth in Australia’s working-age population. And that’s a concern because, if it continues, then the unemployment rate will rise considerably.<\/p>\n

“We’ve already seen that recently, with the unemployment rate rising by around 0.3 percentage points since the beginning of the year.”<\/p>\n

However, he said job ads and vacancies data indicated there were still jobs waiting to be filled, meaning the outlook was “still bright, even if recent data has been less than ideal”.<\/p>\n

Jobs data should keep ‘RBA on sidelines’ in September<\/p>\n

The Australian dollar rose to two-week highs following the data release, as the improvement in the jobs market saw expectations of an interest rate cut in September pared back.<\/p>\n

Economists and traders are betting on a further reduction in rates by the RBA this year, with November considered the most likely timing, after this week’s 0.25 percentage point cut took the cash rate to 3.6 per cent.<\/p>\n

Where are rates heading?<\/a><\/p>\n

The Reserve Bank’s economic outlook suggests further room to cut interest rates, but it’s not all good news for most working-age Australians.<\/p>\n

“The tick down in the unemployment rate in July is likely to keep the RBA on sidelines at its next meeting in September, but we still think the bank will ultimately loosen policy a bit further than most expect,” Capital Economics senior economist Abhijit Surya said.<\/p>\n

“However, if we’re right that the labour market will loosen again over the coming months, while activity and inflation remain subdued, the bank should have few concerns about resuming its easing cycle in November.”<\/p>\n

RBC’s Ms Ong noted that jobs data would be a key focus for the RBA as it made its upcoming decisions.<\/p>\n

“At this juncture with inflation comfortably back within target and moving towards mid-point, we expect the labour market to become more important in the RBA’s policy deliberations,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

“The labour market will likely be the key domestic driver as to whether the RBA needs to step up the pace of easing (or whether we are not too far from the end of this easing cycle).”<\/p>\n

She said a range of indicators in the monthly report, rather than just the headline unemployment rate, would be used by the RBA to gauge the health of the jobs market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s unemployment rate improved in July, edging lower to 4.2 per cent from 4.3 per cent in June,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[35596,84,1294,1965,814,3264,1371,31120,19743,9918,35665,56,1932,4759,54,55],"class_list":["post-68160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","tag-abs","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-hiring","tag-interest-rates","tag-job-losses","tag-jobs","tag-jobs-market","tag-labour-force","tag-rba","tag-reserve-bank","tag-uk","tag-unemployment","tag-unemployment-rate","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68160","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=68160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}