With locked-down states opening up in the month of November, Australia’s unemployment rate plunges. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) noted that it had come about at 4.6%, a 0.6 percentage point improvement on the October figures, with 366,100 jobs added. This new jobs addition smashed the previous high for any month, beating the 237,600 tally added in June 2020 after the first economic revival post the arrival of COVID-19.

The fall in unemployment rates also comes with many more people resuming the search for work. The participation rate surged 1.4 percentage points in the month, to 66.1%, and is now higher than pre-COVID pandemic levels, ABS data shows.

‘Total employment is now higher than it was back in June 2021, (before) the latest round of lockdowns,’ said Justin Smirk, a senior Westpac economist. He also noted that most of the gains were in part-time employment, with 237,800 such positions added.

Bjorn Jarvis, Head of labour statistics at the ABS, adds, ‘The latest data shows the extent of recovery between early October and early November in jurisdictions coming out of Delta lockdowns.The easing of restrictions in both NSW and Victoria had a large influence on the national figures, with employment in the two states increasing by 180,000 people and 141,000 people between October and November.’

According to Westpac, underemployment also had a meaningful shift during the month, falling two percentage points to 7.5%, the lowest level of underemployment since January 2014.The November jobless rate is not far shy of the 4.5% posted in August, which itself was the lowest in more than a decade. The last time the jobless rate was lower was in October 2008, when it was 4.3%. 

In a speech on Thursday, RBA governor Philip Lowe said that the Australian labour market was expected to tighten further over the next couple of years, and the bank’s ‘central scenario’ is for the jobless rate to reach 4.25% by the end of 2022, and 4% by the end of 2023. He believes that if this could be achieved, there would be positive outcomes. Moreover, Australia has not experienced a sustained period of unemployment at levels this low since the early 1970s. 

‘As the unemployment rate declines and workers become harder to find, greater attention will need to be paid to training and skills development than has been the case over the past few decades,’ Lowe said.

While the future of work for the ones in search of employment looks positive, the road ahead for economic revival and sustained employment requires strategic planning on the part of leadership and future proofing against potential disruptions.