SYDNEY, March 13, 2014 (AFP) - Australia's unemployment rate was steady at its decade-high level of 6.0 percent for the second straight month in February, despite a surprising rise in full-time positions, data showed Thursday.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said while there was strong growth in full-time jobs - an unexpected development given the unwinding of the mining boom - this was offset by a fall in the number of part-time positions.
"Full-time employment increased 80,500 to 8,049,900 and part-time employment decreased 33,300 to 3,480,900," the bureau said.
The statistics follow announcements of thousands of job losses in Australia's automobile and aviation sectors, many of which have yet to filter through, including 5,000 positions in national carrier Qantas to be axed by 2017.
The Australian dollar rose on the data, climbing to 90.70 US cents from 89.53 US cents late Wednesday.
Unemployment in Australia is now at its highest point since the global financial crisis, when it peaked at 5.8 percent, and its worst level since July 2003.
Conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that while he was "deeply dissatisfied" with the latest figures, they were better than the previous Labor government's predictions and confirmed to him the need press ahead with plans to cut taxes and regulation.
"I certainly take this as an important spur to further economic reform," he told reporters.
"Plainly unemployment at 6.0 percent is much higher than we would like it."
Australia's economy expanded a better-than-expected 0.8 percent in the last three months of 2013 as the commodity-powered nation's transition away from its reliance on the mining sector picked up speed.
And, last month, Australia's central bank lifted its economic growth forecast to 2.75 percent in the year to June 30 as the local currency weakened and lower interest rates stimulated spending.
But the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) warned at the time that any improvement in the labour market was only likely to be "moderate over the coming year and the unemployment rate will continue to edge higher".
"So while this report is certainly upbeat, the unemployment rate at 6.0 percent and annual employment growth at a tepid 0.6 percent year-on-year remain within the bounds of current RBA thinking," said Annette Beacher, TD Securities head of Asia-Pacific research.
"With GDP expected to reach at least 3.0 percent growth this year, we expect employment growth to follow. However, even a return to 1.5 percent year-on-year employment growth by year end doesn't guarantee an unemployment rate below 6.0 percent."
RBC Capital Markets currency strategist Michael Turner said the trend in employment "looks to have improved noticeably over the past six months".
"It's still uncertain how things will play out in the mining sector in the second half of the year but generally we think there will be slightly firmer outcomes for employment in the second half of the year," he said.
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