Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.2% – the lowest level in 14 years

Why NOW is the time to ask for a pay rise with the six-figure salary jobs revealed as unemployment plunges to a 14-year low – with bosses struggling to find workers

  • Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to a 14-year low of 4.2 per cent 
  • Jobless rate for December showed a fall from November’s 4.6 per cent rate
  • The unemployment level is now at the lowest point since June 2008 before GFC
  • In one month, 64,800 new jobs were created with number unemployed falling
  • The number of people without a job is now at the lowest level since late 2010 


Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to a 14-year low of 4.2 per cent as 64,800 jobs were created in just one month. 

Employers are struggling to find staff with the lowest jobless level since August 2008, shortly before the worsening of the Global Financial Crisis, making now the time to look for another job or ask for a pay rise.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data related to December as a surge in Omicron cases exacerbated labour shortages in the hospitality and construction sectors.

It also marked a sharp drop from November’s already low 4.6 per cent level, when Australia’s border was still closed to international students and foreign workers.

Since mid-December, the federal government has allowed fully-vaccinated international students, skilled migrants and those on working holiday visas back into Australia for the first time since March 2020. 

Australia’s unemployment rates has fallen to a 14-year low of 4.2 per cent (pictured is a Bondi cafe in Sydney)

A record 13,242,000 people have a job in Australia.

Of the 64,800 new jobs created, 41,500 of them were full-time with 23,000 part time. 

The number of unemployed fell by 62,200 to 574,400 – the lowest since December 2010 during the mining boom and far cry from July 2020 when more than a million people were out of work because of lockdowns.

As recently as December, Treasury’s Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook forecast Australia’s jobless rate falling to 4.25 per cent by the end of June 2023 but this occurring even faster than expected. 

Australia’s jobless rate fell to 4 per cent in August 2008 but it hasn’t fallen below that level since 1974, before the oil crisis caused an inflation spike in Australia.

Last month, unemployment rate in South Australia and Tasmania hit record lows of just 3.9 per cent, the lowest since the ABS began compiling monthly labour force data in February 1978. 

The jobless level fell to just 3.4 per cent in Western Australia, the lowest in 13 years while New South Wales had a three-year low jobless rate of 4 per cent.

Seek data showed job ads on its site last year increasing by 39 per cent, but when December 2021 was compared with December 2020, hospitality and tourism had an even bigger 59.4 per cent increase. 

Australia is still a workers’ market with National Skills Commission data showing internet job ads in December, of 245,602 available positions, was 37.4 per cent stronger compared with the same month in 2020.

Employers are struggling to find staff with the lowest jobless level since August 2008, shortly before the worsening of the Global Financial Crisis, making now the time to look for another job or ask for a pay rise (pictured is an empty set of shelves at Woolworths in Sydney)

Employers are struggling to find staff with the lowest jobless level since August 2008, shortly before the worsening of the Global Financial Crisis, making now the time to look for another job or ask for a pay rise (pictured is an empty set of shelves at Woolworths in Sydney)

The ABS’s national payrolls data for week ending on December 18 also showed a whopping 9 per cent surge in wages, as labour shortages make life harder for recruiters. 

Managers had the highest salaries, with their hourly wage of $65.10 translating into $2,278.50 a week or $118,482 over the year.

Professionals earned $57.90 an hour, working out at $2,026.50 a week or $105,378 annually.

While most Australians regard 40 hours a week as full-time work, the Australian Bureau of Statistics classifies that as 35 hours a week.  

Australia’s pay scales 

MANAGERS: $65.10 an hour or $118,482 a year

PROFESSIONALS: $57.90 an hour or $105,378 a year

TECHNICIANS: $39.50 an hour or $71,890 a year

MACHINERY: $37.40 an hour or $68,068 a year

CLERICAL: $36.90 an hour or $67,158 a year

COMMUNITY: $35.40 an hour or $64,428 a year

LABOURERS: $31 an hour or $56,420 a year

SALES: $30.50 an hour or $55,510 a year

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