Australia’s unemployment drops below 5%

For the first time in 10 years, Australia records an unemployment rate of 4.9%. The rate was 2.4% lower than June 2020 and 0.4% lower than March 2020.

The total employed persons in Australia is now 13.125 million. There has never been a greater percent of the Australia population in employment.

Full time employment continued to rise by 51,600 people to 9.016m and part-time employment decreased by 22,500 people.

In Western Australia, the total number of people in jobs in June has risen, increasing to 1.404m compared to 1.391m people in May.

Premier, Mark McGowan has recently announced a range of immediate initiatives to stimulate the States jobs market in response to the current skill shortages. These initiatives include:

A $5.2m incentive for businesses to employ 200 new mature age apprentices
$4m for a 12-month extension to the Apprentice and Traineeship Re-engagement Incentive
Registering an additional 134 occupations on the WA Skilled Migration Occupation List from high demand industries
Freezing rents on public sector housing in regional WA to support worker retention
Establishing a new partner between Tourism WA and training council FutureNow to develop career programs for high-school students.

With the Jobs Skills Summit being rescheduled to Friday, 30 July, the government is hoping that it results in more fast-tracked initiatives to strengthen the States workforce.