Australia Hits A Record High On Jobs

08 Jul 2010

On Thursday, as per official data, Australia has hit a record high of 11.1 million people at work smashing job forecasts. This sent the dollar and bank shares soaring. Employment Minister Simon Crean said that resource-rich Australia’s economy had produced employment which was the envy of my rival countries.

As per the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the economy had created 45,900 jobs in June, enabling unemployment to hold steady at 5.1 per cent and matching May's figure, which was revised down from 5.2 per cent.

Mr. Crean said,” Australia’s strong labor force figures stand in stark contrast to the stubbornly high unemployment rates still being experienced in many other advanced economies, where the aftershocks from the crisis are continuing to reverberate”. He added that “Australia’s unemployment rates are clearly the envy of most of our major trading partners.”

Shortly after the announcement of the data, Australian dollar pushed a US cent higher to 87.44 US cents as a renewed proof of Australia’s resilience in the face of global economic turmoil.

In January 2009, unemployment was at 4.8 per cent which jumped to 5.2 per cent the following month as the global crisis took hold. It then peaked at 5.8 per cent, well below government forecasts of 8.5 per cent.