Latest data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that Australia has seen the slowest employment growth this year.
Over the past 12 months, trend employment increased by 87,300 (or 0.7 per cent), which is less than half the size of the average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years (1.8 per cent).
The new figures reveal that NSW has the lowest percent of unemployment rate in Australia while South Australia has the highest unemployment in the country.
South Australia’s unemployment rate at 7% is higher than the national average of 5.7%.
Western Australia was just a tad bit below South Australia at 6.9%.
South Australia’s Employment Minister Kyam Maher says the rise is disappointing but can largely be attributed to an increased participation rate.
Source: ABS
He says more people in the state are employed than ever before, with 9500 more jobs than this time last year.
"Over the last 12 months, we've seen both the headline and the trend unemployment rates come down. We've seen them come much closer to the national average," he told reporters on Thursday.
But Mr Maher admitted there is "much more work to be done".
Despite the rise in the jobless rate, the Federal Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said the ABS had confirmed the number of Australians in employment was actually at a record level.
“Whilst we have seen a slight increase from 5.6 to 5.7 per cent, this is very much due to the fact that we have seen an increase in the participation rate,” she was quoted saying by news.com.au.
“The Government is also pleased that, over the last two months, we have seen the economy create approximately 85,000 fulltime jobs.”
