Australia's unemployment rate ticked lower in May, in line with analyst forecasts, falling slightly from a post-pandemic high struck in April as the backlog of people waiting to start a job eased.
The country's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 4.4% in May from 4.5% in the previous month, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed on Thursday.
Westpac and BofA Securities both forecast a decline to 4.4%.
The result came as the number of employed Australians grew by 40,300 from April, helping push the seasonally adjusted employment-to-population ratio 0.1 percentage points higher to 63.8% in May, while the number of unemployed people fell by 18,300, the data showed.
Full-time employment grew by roughly 5,000 and part-time employment by around 35,000, with the underemployment rate rising 0.1 percentage point to 5.9% in May.
However, the number of hours worked slipped 1.1% in May following a nearly 1% increase in April, when fewer people took leave during the Easter holiday period. The decline in May "brings hours worked back in line with employment growth since the end of the pandemic in June 2022," said Sean Crick, head of labor statistics at the ABS.
A separate same-day release from the agency showed Australian job vacancies falling to 329,500 in May, with a 2.1% decline in the three months through May representing the first drop in vacancies since August 2025.
The decline in unemployment is likely to factor into the Reserve Bank of Australia's monetary policy deliberations. The central bank raised borrowing costs three times this year before pausing the tightening cycle at its most recent meeting earlier in June.
