Unemployment grows to 5.3% in August

Australia's unemployment rate grew by 0.1 percentage point to 5.3% in August, the ABS revealed on Thursday.

The number of people employed fell by nearly 10,000. A larger decline in the number of full-time positions was offset by an increase in part-time employment.

Around 637,000 Australians fell into the classification of unemployed during the month. This is an increase of 3%, or 18,400 positions.

The seasonally adjusted underemployment rate also increased to 5.3% from 5.1%. Yet at the same time, the number of hours worked grew by an aggregate 4.6 million hours. This figure has been rising consistently since August 2009.

The growth in unemployment was more pronounced among males than females, and this same trend was reflected in the labour force underutilization rate – the number of unemployed and underemployed people as a proportion of available workers.

ANZ (ASX:ANZ) this week foreshadowed the data by revealing that job advertisements fell in August for the fourth time in five months.

The bank is expecting the unemployment rate to grow to between 5.25% and 5.5% over the next 12 months.