Unemployment rate steady at 5.8% but full-time jobs cut: Economy Roundup

The unemployment rate remained steady at 5.8% in August, but the loss of 30,800 full-time jobs during the month indicates the labour market remains under pressure.

Most economists have been predicting the unemployment rate would remain steady, but predictions were for just 15,000 jobs to be lost.

In total, employment decreased by 27,100 to 10,763,600, with part-time employment increasing by 3,800 to 3,209,800.

The aggregate total of hours worked during the month fell 0.26% to 1,507.7 million hours.

The participation rate (which measures the proportion of people in work or looking for work) decreased 0.3% to 65.1%.

“There’s not a lot of good news in there other than the unemployment rate staying steady,” Matt Robinson of Moody’s Economy.com told The Age.

“The shrinking labour force kept the unemployment level steady… but the total monthly hours worked were down.”

Shares flat, Wall Street up again

Australian shares has had another mixed morning, with the benchmark ASX-S&P 200 index up 25.2 points or 0.6% to 4547.4 at 12:00 AEST.

AMP was the best of the majors, rising 1.8% to $6.31, while shares in News Corp rose 1.1% to $15.21 and Westpac shares are up 1% to $24.51.

Overnight on Wall Street, shares closed higher for the fourth consecutive day, despite the US dollar continuing to slide. Tech stocks were the big gainers, with Google and Apple doing well after the release of some new products from the latter.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.53%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1.11%.

Back home, uranium explorer Palandin completed its capital raising, grabbing $419 million from institutional investors.

Investment banking giant Macquarie reaffirmed its prediction of an $871 million profit for the 2009 financial year, but indicated that it remained cautious about the outlook.

“We continue to maintain a cautious stance with a conservative approach to funding and capital, notwithstanding some improvement in market conditions,” Macquarie said in a statement.