Full employment doesn't mean zero jobless

Full employment, an admirable objective of Bill Shorten, is not the same as zero unemployment.

If it was, inflation would sky-rocket, and homeowners could say goodbye to the relatively cheap mortgages they enjoy today.

As Australians change jobs or seek employment, zero unemployment is effectively impossible.

Still, as the federal opposition leader told the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday, full employment is a Labor aspiration.

It was also a social and economic good.

"When every Australian is given the opportunity to fulfil their potential we are a stronger economy, and a better society," he said.

What full employment means is a jobless rate just under five per cent.

That's still a long way off a six-in-front-of-it reading that has been the norm for the past two years.

The most recent low in the unemployment rate was just four per cent set in early 2008.

Back then, inflation was running at a staggering 4.6 per cent, going higher to 5.2 per cent before the end of that year - way above the Reserve Bank's preferred 2-3 per cent target band.

The central bank's cash rate stood at 7.25 per cent and the average standard variable home loan around 9.5 per cent.

The cash rate now sits at a record low two per cent and the average mortgage rate is 5.65 per cent.

The rate of unemployment at which inflation pressures start to emerge - otherwise known as NAIRU (the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) - is considered to range between 4.5 per cent and five per cent.

Economists expect the latest labour force figures on Thursday will show unemployment remaining at six per cent for a second month in a row.