Australia's unemployment rate rises to 5.7 percent in November

There's further bad news for the federal government as the jobless rate unexpectedly rose to 5.7 percent in November, coming just a week after figures showed the economy had suffered its worst performance since the global financial crisis.

Economists had expected the unemployment rate to remain steady at 5.6 percent.

However, today's figures did show the number of people employed in the month increased by 39,100, which comprised 39,300 full-time positions, which was only partially offset by a 200 decrease in part-time workers.