Employment in Queensland

The Queensland Government today reported that "Queensland leads the nation in jobs growth", with 18,200 new full time jobs, and more jobs growth than in any other state over the past 12 months. That all sounds wonderful.

This good news is all based on the latest labour force statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today.

Nationally, the headline figures make for good reading: employment has increased to 11,573,100; unemployment down to 719,700, the unemployment rate remains steady at 5.9% and the participation rate remains steady at 64.7%.

In Queensland, we're actually seeing a slow increase in the unemployment rate. As shown below, the gap remains between the state unemployment rate (blue line) and the national rate (green line). Other states and territories are also shown for comparison.

Unemployment rate, states, territories and Australia

Both Queensland and Australia seem to be experiencing an upward swing in unemployment, if only a small swing at this stage. The graph below shows the same movement in rates for Queensland and Australia, with a 12-month moving average trendline for each.

Unemployment rate, states, territories and Australia