Australia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained steady at 5.4 per cent in February, as announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The ABS reported the number of people employed increased by 71,500 to 11,628,300 in February. The increase in employment was due to increased part-time employment, up 53,700 people to 3,510,800 and increased full-time employment, up 17,800 to 8,117,400. The increase in total employment was driven by an increase in male part-time employment, and female full-time and part-time employment.

The number of people unemployed increased by 400 people to 660,000 in February, the ABS reported.

The ABS monthly seasonally adjusted aggregate hours worked series showed an increase in February, up 11.3 million hours to 1,632.8 million hours.


The ABS reported a seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate increase of 0.3 percentage points to 65.3 per cent in February.


The seasonally adjusted underemployment rate was 7.1 per cent in February 2013. Combined with the unemployment rate of 5.4 per cent, the latest estimate of total seasonally adjusted labour force underutilisation was 12.5 per cent in February.


More details are in the February 2013 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0), as well as the upcoming February 2013 issues of Labour Force, Australia, Detailed (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) and Labour Force, Australia, Quarterly (cat. no. 6291.0.55.003), due for release next week on March 21. In addition an article on the number of jobs in the economy will be published on March 21. These publications are available for free download (after release) from the ABS website -www.abs.gov.au.