Unemployment rises slightly to 6.2 per cent

Australia's unemployment rate has risen to 6.2 per cent, up one per cent over the COVID-19 hit month of April, well down on economists forecasts.

Before the release of the figures from the ABS today, economists were tipping a rise to 8.3 per cent, which would have taken the unemployment rate to the highest point since August 1997.

The majority were saying seven per cent or higher.

Unemployment instead however rose by just one percent from 5.2 per cent in March, with the number of people unemployed increasing by 104,500 to 823,300.

Employment fell by 594,3000 people, seasonally adjusted.

“The large drop in employment did not translate into a similar sized rise in the number of unemployed people because around 489,800 people left the labour force”, Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said.

 Participation rate fell by 2.4 per cent to 63.5 per cent.

“This means there was a high number of people without a job who didn’t or couldn’t actively look for work or weren’t available for work”, Jarvis said.

Unemployment in South Australia rose to 7.2 per cent, the highest in the country.

Tasmania saw the biggest jump, up 1.3 per cent, followed by Queensland and New South Wales, who both saw 1.1 per cent increase in unemployment from March to April.

Josh Frydenberg says Treasury still expects the jobless rate will peak at 10 per cent before recovering.