Employment Minister Eric Abetz believes the latest jobs figures demonstrate the need for the Senate to back government measures to help create more job opportunities.
While surrounded in controversy, the latest numbers from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate the unemployment rate rose to 6.1 per cent in September from a revised six per cent in August.
The number of people employed in September fell by 29,700 following a revised 32,100 increase the previous month.
August employment was originally forecast as an extraordinary 121,000 increase.
Senator Abetz said the unemployment figures continue to illustrate the extent of the challenges Australia faces, especially for young Australians looking for work.
The government is focused on creating an economic environment where more job opportunities are being created.
"But we need to ensure that our positive policy agenda advances as quickly as possible through the Senate," Senator Abetz said in a statement on Thursday.
The ABS has adopted a new methodology compiling the jobs data following recent extreme volatility in the seasonally adjusted numbers.
The minister expects it will be some months before it is possible to discern longer-term trends based on the revised methodology, noting the ABS has commissioning a review to develop an appropriate method for seasonally adjusting the labour force estimates from October 2014 onwards.
Opposition employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor said even with the revisions and the work of the experts at the ABS the jobless rates remains above six per cent.
"This is an unemployment rate that is stubbornly high. It is an unemployment rate that is inexcusable," Mr O'Connor told reporters in Melbourne.
He said a year on from the coalition coming to power the rate of unemployment is now higher than that of the US for the first time in seven years, something that never happened under the previous Labor government.
The figures also points to Prime Minister Tony Abbott being more than 70,000 jobs behind in an election promise to create one million new jobs in five years, he said.
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