Unemployment rate falls to 5.8 per cent in March

APRIL 10, 2014
News.com.au
AUSTRALIA’S unemployment rate fell to 5.8 per cent in March from 6.1 per cent in February, official figures show.
The total number of people with jobs rose 18,100 to 11.553 million in the month, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.
The median forecast for the unemployment rate was 6.1 per cent in March, with 5,000 fewer people with jobs, according to an AAP survey of 11 market economists.
Full-time employment fell 22,100 to 8.029 million in March and part-time employment was up 40,200 to 3.524 million.
The participation rate — the proportion of the population that have a job, are looking for work or are ready to start work fell to 64.7 per cent, from 64.9 in February.
Employed people in Australia worked a total of 1.617 billion hours in March, the seasonally adjusted figures showed.
That was up by 0.5 per cent from the 1.609 billion hours worked in February, and up 1.6 per cent from the 1.592 billion hours worked in March 2013.
The average amount of time worked per employee rose to 139 hours and 59 minutes in March, from 139 hours and 30 minutes in February, a rise of just over 28 minutes, or 0.3 per cent.
Compared with March 2013, the average time worked per employee rose by 40 minutes, or 0.5 per cent.