Unemployment rate steady days before RBA interest rates meeting despite spike in new jobs

The unemployment rate has remained steady just days before the Reserve Bank's next decision on interest rates, despite almost 90,000 people finding work last month.

The new data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning showed the jobless rate remained at 4.1 per in April, in line with economists' forecasts.

However, there were 89,000 new jobs created in the economy – far higher than expected.

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"We had 59,500 new full-time jobs created in the month, and another 29,500 part-time jobs created in the month," Nine finance editor Chris Kohler said.

"Now, that is significantly more than the market was expecting.

"So all reasonable and in line with expectations on the unemployment rate, but quite a bit stronger than everyone was expecting when it comes to the number of new jobs created. So that's a bit of a split here."

He said that is unlikely to get in the way of an expected interest rates cut on Tuesday, but may stop the Reserve Bank from pulling the trigger on three further cuts throughout the rest of the year, which the market was expecting just last week.

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"We're expecting to see a 25-basis-point cut, that is 96 per cent baked in, according to the market," Kohler said.

"I think that's going to remain. What's really interesting here is if we continue to see strength in the labour market like this, then it might mean that we get three interest rate cuts from now until the end of the year, as opposed to four.

"And if we do get a rate cut on Tuesday, probably expect to see some cautious language coming from Michelle Bullock."

Women accounted for the vast majority of the almost 90,000 new jobs created last month, with 65,000 compared to 24,000 new jobs for men.

The national participation rate rose slightly, up 0.3 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," ABS head of labour statistics Sean Crick said.

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