Data reveals that unemployment in Australia has dropped to a one-year low, and the number of people in jobs has exceeded pre-pandemic levels. This is a good sign of economic recovery. Naturally, shares closed at their highest level in almost 14 months.
The unemployment rate fell from 5.8 per cent to a 12-month low of 5.6 per cent in March. Number of hours worked went up from 1,762 million hours to a record high of 1,800 million hours (up 2.2 per cent) to be up 1.2 per cent over the year. The participation rate also rose from 66.1 per cent to a record high of 66.3 per cent in March.
Under-employment has gone down by 0.6 percentage points to 7.9 per cent, the lowest level in seven years, and underutilisation dropped by 0.8 percentage point to 13.5 per cent.
Not surprisingly, Australia has become one of the first countries in the world to regain all the jobs that were lost through the disaster that was year 2020. In fact, the Australian economy is not just recovering but rapidly expanding.
Citizens are increasing their spend and companies are considering investments. This has led to increase in hiring and citizens are already back to hunting for jobs. As a result, the labour force is also growing adding to the positive economic outlook.
This clearly proves the link between the economy of a country and the health of its population. Australia has controlled community transmission of the corona virus to isolated flare ups.