CANBERRA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Australia's unemployment rate rose slightly in December to 4.0 percent from 3.9 percent in November, as participation in the workforce reached a record high.
According to official labor force data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday, the total number of employed Australians grew by 56,300 between November and December, but the number of unemployed people -- meaning those who are not employed and are actively looking for a job -- increased by 10,300 in the same period.
The participation rate, which measures the proportion of the working-age population who are either employed or actively looking for work, increased from 66.9 percent in November to a record-high 67.1 percent in December.
"This was 0.5 percentage points higher than a year ago, and 1.6 percentage points higher than March 2020," Bjorn Jarvis, head of labor statistics at the ABS, said.
The employment-to-population ratio, the percentage of the working-age population that is employed, grew from 64.3 percent to a record-high of 64.5 percent in December.
Jarvis said the figure was 0.5 percentage points higher than in December 2023 and 2.3 percentage points higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic period. ■
