Prime Minister says ‘these are our dark times’

THE unemployment rate jumped to a seasonally adjusted 7.1 per cent in May following coronavirus-related lockdowns, with the spike higher than economists had expected.

There were 227,700 jobs lost during the month, with a decrease of 89,100 full-time positions and 138,600 part-time jobs, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed yesterday. The rise in the unemployment rate – from a revised 6.4 per cent in April – reflects the ongoing impact of strict social distancing measures imposed from late-March that led to business closures.

Economists had, on average, expected the unemployment rate to jump to 7.0 per cent with about 100,000 jobs lost in the month.

However, the participation rate – or the percentage of people looking for work, dropped by 0.7 percentage points to 62.9 per cent, reflecting the weak conditions.

The underemployment rate slipped 0.7 percentage points to 13.1 per cent and the under-utilisation rate – or the rate of people looking for more working hours – rose 0.1 percentage points to 20.2 per cent.

Queensland and South Australia hit 7.9 per cent, Northern Territory rose to 7.4 per cent while New South Wales ticked up slightly to 6.4 per cent, from 6.3 per cent.

Victoria’s jobless rate also rose to 6.9 per cent from 6.0 per cent.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the news as heartbreaking and warned there was a long way to go as the country recovered from the pandemic. “This recession will be written in the stories of those who are experiencing terrible hardship,” he said. “These are our dark times, but I can see that ray of light, and I’m sure Australians can see that too, but we have to keep moving towards it and work harder.”