Australia’s unemployment rate fell below 5% for the first time since a decade. However, the new data doesn’t account for the Greater Sydney lockdown.

According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the rate fell to 4.9% in June, down from 5.1% in May.

The strong increase in employment in the last month was due to full-time employment increasing by 51,600 (or 0.6%) in June to a record 9,016,800. The full-time workforce is now at 151,700 (or 1.7%) more than it was in March 2020.

Although female employment fell marginally by 400 in June it still stands at 97,100 (or 1.6%) above March 2020.

The number of full-time female jobs rose by 600 to a record 3,445,600 level in June.

In June, the youth unemployment rate fell by 0.5 percentage point to 10.2 percent. This is the lowest rate since January 2009.

Josh Frydenberg, Treasurer of Australia, stated that the outbreak in south-west Sydney showed that Australia has not fully recovered from the pandemic.

“We are not out of the pandemic, as the lockdown in NSW and the growing cases here in Victoria show,” said Mr Frydenberg.

We still have a lot of work to do to ensure our economic recovery.

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“But Australia’s economy has resilience, it is strong, today’s job numbers show that.”

Stuart Robert, the Employment Minister, acknowledged that Australia-wide lockdowns were creating uncertainty in the economy.

Roberts stated that there is a risk of COVID-19 continuing to spread in the coming months, which creates uncertainty.

“Recent lockdowns will have an effect on employment in the coming months.”

The rate of underemployment rose to 7.9%, an increase of half a point.