Unemployment rate steady at 4.1% in April
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 4.1 per cent in April, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Sean Crick, ABS head of labour statistics, said: ‘With employment increasing by 89,000 people and the number of unemployed increasing by 6,000 people, the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.1 per cent for April.’
The rise in employment was larger for females, up 65,000 (0.9 per cent), while male employment was up 24,000 (0.3 per cent). Female employment growth was mainly in full-time workers, which rose 42,000 (1.1 per cent) in April. Female part-time workers rose by 23,000 (0.8 per cent).
Employment has grown by 390,000 people, or 2.7 per cent, over the year. This annual growth rate is higher than the population growth rate for people aged 15 years and over, which was 2.1 per cent over the same period.
The strong growth in employment led to a rise in the employment-to-population ratio of 0.3 percentage points to 64.4 per cent in April, just below the record high of 64.5 per cent seen in January.
The addition of 6,000 unemployed people meant the labour force grew by 95,000 people and the participation rate rose by 0.3 percentage points to 67.1 per cent.
‘The participation rate for 35-44 year olds had the largest annual growth, up 1.9 percentage points to 88.3 per cent,’ Mr Crick said.
Source: Labour Force, Australia, Detailed Table 1
After two consecutive months of falls, monthly hours worked rose marginally by 630,000 hours (0.0 per cent) despite the strong growth in employment.
Underemployment and underutilisation
The underemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage points to 6.0 per cent in April 2025. This was 0.5 percentage points lower than April 2024, and 2.7 percentage points lower than March 2020.
The underutilisation rate, which combines the unemployment and underemployment rates, rose by 0.2 percentage points to 10.1 per cent. This was 3.8 percentage points lower than March 2020.
Underlying trend data
The trend unemployment rate remained at 4.1 per cent in April. It has been within a relatively narrow range of 3.9 and 4.1 per cent for the past 17 months.
Employment grew by around 26,000 people (0.2 per cent) in April, and 2.5 per cent over the last 12 months.
Monthly hours worked fell by 0.1 per cent.
‘In trend terms, the employment-to-population ratio remained at 64.3 per cent in April, while the participation rate remained at 67.0 per cent,’ Mr Crick said.
The underemployment rate rose marginally to 6.0 per cent and the underutilisation rate remained steady at 10.0 per cent.
More information, including regional labour market data, will be available in the upcoming April 2025 issue of Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, on Thursday 22 May 2025.
The ABS would like to thank Australians for their continued support in responding to our surveys.
Media notes
- The April survey reference period is from 30 March 2025 to 12 April 2025.
- The May survey reference period is from 4 May 2025 to 17 May 2025.
- The ABS defines population as the civilian population aged 15 years and over when reporting labour force statistics.
- The ABS defines pre-pandemic as March 2020 when analysing and reporting labour force statistics.
- Watch our data literacy presentation on CPI, inflation and cost of living data as well as our ABS data crash course, designed especially for journalists to learn how to find, download and interpret our data.
- Official, high-resolution images of ABS media spokespeople can be found in our image library.
- When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
- For media requests and interviews, contact the ABS Media Team via media@abs.gov.au (9am-5pm Mon-Fri).
- Subscribe to our media release notification service to get notified of ABS media releases or publications upon their release.