The two 'headlines' are employment change and unemployment

Employment Change +17.5K

  • A small miss on the expected
  • expected +20.0K, prior ++12.5K, re vised from +16.0K

Unemployment Rate 5.6%

  • higher than expected, but check out participation (scroll down a bit)
  • expected 5.5%, prior 5.5%

Full Time Employment Change +64.9K ..... huge up, but swings and roundabouts from previous result

  • prior was -53.2K, revised from -49.8K

Part Time Employment Change -47.4K .... again, looks like some response to the previous result

  • prior was +65.6K, revised from +65.9K

Participation Rate 65.7 % .... up higher than expected ... to a fresh record for participation

  • expected 65.6%, prior was 65.6%

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The above are seasonally adjusted data, which is the immediate market focus.

But the 'trend' data is essential to be aware of also ...

Monthly trend full-time employment increased for the 16th straight month in February 2018.

  • total increase in employment of 19,000
  • Full-time employment grew by a further 8,000 persons in February
  • part-time employment increased by 12,000 persons
  • persons
  • trend unemployment rate remained steady at 5.5%
  • trend monthly hours worked decreased slightly, by 1.4 million hours (0.1 per cent), with the annual figure continuing to show strong growth (2.7 per cent).
  • Over the past year, trend employment increased by 3.3 per cent, which is above the average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years (1.9 per cent).

ABS commentary (Chief Economist for the ABS, Bruce Hockman)

  • "While the unemployment rate remained steady, the underemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 8.3 per cent over the quarter, and is now at its lowest point since November 2015"
  • "Full-time employment has now increased by around 293,000 persons over the past year, and makes up the majority of the 400,000 increase in employment"

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Another solid month's report, continuing the trend of employment growth.