Australian jobs minister welcomes latest fall in jobless rate

Australian Federal Jobs Minister Chris Evans on Thursday hailed the latest job figures, saying that it highlights the underlying strength and resilience of the Australian economy in the face of heightened global instability. At a time when many advanced economies see stubbornly high jobless rates, Australian Bureau of Statistics data on Thursday showed that Australia's unemployment rate unexpectedly fell 0.1 percent to 5.2 percent in September. This came from a 10-month high of 5.3 percent in August. Evans said in a statement that the results is encouraging with an increase in full-time employment in the month, rising by 10,800 workers, and part-time employment increasing by 9,600 to a record high. He said the economy has created around 750,000 jobs since Labor came to office in 2007, and that Australia's employment growth comes at a time of global economic instability and financial market volatility. "We know that that this global uncertainty is making it harder for some sectors in our patchwork economy which are under pressure from the high dollar and cautious consumer," he said on Thursday. "But we can't lose sight of the fact that our fundamental economic strength makes us better placed than almost every other advanced economy to deal with the global instability." Meanwhile, HSBC' s chief economist in Australia said HSBC expected that the unemployment rate stays in the low fives in coming months, which will help to reduce the inflation problems that Australia was otherwise facing with a tight labor market putting upward pressure on unit labor costs. "Today's labor market report was positive news, particularly against the global backdrop of continued woe," he told Xinhua in an email note. "While the global cooling is clearly having some impact on Australia - particularly in terms of weaker confidence in recent months - the sun still shines downunder." He said that the next critical piece of data to look out for is the CPI figures, due on 26 October, will be the next critical data for Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to determine on interest rate, but HSBC continue to expect underlying inflation to be elevated, keeping the RBA on hold for the rate for the rest of this year. RBA last raised interest rate for 0.25 percent to 4.75 percent in November last year.