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Australian unemployment rises to 7 pct in October

Xinhua News,CANBERRA
2020-11-19 14:14

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CANBERRA, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Australia's unemployment rate has risen slightly in October.

According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday, the unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percent from 6.9 percent in September to 7.0 percent in October.

However, the number of employed Australians rose by 178,800 -- or 1.4 percent -- and the number of hours worked rose by 1.2 percent.

Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labor Statistics at the ABS, said that the rise in unemployment was because of a 0.9 percent increase in the number of Australians looking for work.

The ABS only considers a person unemployed if they are actively looking for a job.

"The number of people actively looking for work and who were available to start work increased in October," Jarvis said in a media release.

"Coupled with a strong increase in employment, the participation rate (of job seekers) increased by almost a whole percentage point in October to be just 0.1 percentage points below March.

"This strong increase means that employment in October was only 1.7 percent below March, and reflects a large flow of people from outside the labor force back into employment."

In Victoria, where a strict coronavirus lockdown that lasted more than 100 days ended in October, employment increased by 2.5 percent and the participation rate increased by 2 percent.
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