he latest jobs figures have confounded economists again, with a surprise fall in unemployment.
Here are the key points from the seasonally-adjusted figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday:
* The unemployment rate fell to 6.1 per cent in December, from 6.2 per cent (revised from 6.3 per cent) in November.
* The fall was the result of an estimated jump in employment of 37,400, dominated by a 41,600 rise in full-time employment. Economists had mostly expected a small rise of about 5,000.
* The figures are based on a sample survey of households and so have some built-in uncertainty. The ABS says there's a two-in-three chance that the actual change in employment was between 8,400 and 66,400, and a one-in-three chance it was outside that range, either higher or lower. So there's a real chance that the economists were right after all and the bureau's estimate is wrong. (On the other hand, there's also a reasonable chance the economists were even further from the mark than the ABS figures suggest.)
* Among the states, Victoria's rise in employment was the biggest, at 30,800 or 1.1 per cent, nearly eclipsing the gain of 33,300 the state managed over the whole of the preceding year.
* Queensland's rise was next on the ladder, with a gain of 22,500 or 1.0 per cent in December, after a small decline in employment through the entire year to November.
* Employment fell in all the other states in December - by 3,800 in NSW, 3,700 in South Australia, 7,000 in WA and 1,800 in Tasmania. Such divergence among the states is a warning to be sceptical about strength centred in just one or two of them.
* The rise in employment was the third solid gain in a row, with 99,000 in total added to employment over October, November and December. That three-month gain nearly equalled the 105,200 gain over the 12 months to September.
* The ABS trend estimates, which smooth out the lumpy seasonally-adjusted figures show employment rising by 14,400 a month. With the available labour force growing by 15,100 a month on a trend basis, employment growth has now picked up enough to stop the unemployment rate rising if those trends are maintained.
* The trend measure of unemployment stopped rising in December, after edging up incrementally for 31 consecutive months, the longest rising trend in unemployment since the early 1990s recession.
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