Australia’s unemployment rate – the percentage of people who were looking for work but couldn’t find any – fell slightly to 4% in May, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The seasonally adjusted figure is 0.1% lower than the unemployment rate in April.
Seasonal adjustment means the ABS has removed the effects of calendar-specific patterns from the data, like fruit-picking in summer or Christmas casuals in retail in December.
The unemployment rate in May fell by around 9,000 people, bringing the current number of people unemployed in Australia to nearly 600,000.
ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said: “Some of the fall in unemployment and rise in employment in May reflects… people starting or returning to their jobs.”
