CANBERRA, (Pakistan Point News - 18th Jun, 2020) Australia's official unemployment rate jumped from 6.4 percent in April to 7.1 percent in May, which marks the second-biggest monthly drop in employment since the government began keeping records in 1978, German press agency, dpa, reported on Thursday.
227,700 people had lost their jobs between April and May, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ABS, said.
In March to April, some 594,300 jobs were lost due to the coronavirus pandemic, far surpassing the previous record, which means the number of people holding a job in Australia has decreased by at least 822,000 since March.
In two months, the percentage of people aged 15 and over employed in Australia decreased from around 62.5 percent to around 58.7 percent, Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the bureau, said in a statement.
The April unemployment rate has been revised from 6.2 to 6.4 percent. It was 5.2 percent in March.
The participation rate - which includes people either in work or actively seeking work - fell by a further 0.7 percent to 62.9 percent in May, for the first time since January 2001.
Those who are enrolled in Australia's JobKeeper furlough scheme are not counted among the unemployed. The jobless rate would have been even higher at 9.6 percent had people not stopped looking for work, the ABS said.
Australia's economy has entered recession territory due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
