WA jobless rate falls to 4.5% in April

The drop in Western Australia's jobless rate is not cause for celebration just yet with Premier Colin Barnett saying the state is not out of the woods while economists are treating it as a "rogue" number.

WA recorded a fall in unemployment from 4.9 per cent to 4.5 per cent in figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.

Mr Barnett told reporters in Perth that while he was pleased with the figures he expected unemployment to rise further with more economic bad news over the coming months.

"I believe unemployment will rise further nationally and probably in Western Australia, but hopefully these figures indicate the rise in unemployment may not be as great as we had feared," Mr Barnett said.

"We are not out of the woods yet, this is a good set of figures for one month but I think we'd be foolish to draw too much into that."

Total number of people unemployed in WA fell from 60,000 to 55,200.

Separately, the male unemployment rate fell from 5.1 per cent to 4.3 per cent while the female rate climbed from 4.7 per cent to 4.9 per cent.

The state's participation rate dipped from 69.3 per cent in March to 68.9 per cent.

Total number of people employed decreased slightly from 1.1656 million to 1.1651 million while the number of people employed in a full-time capacity rose from 830,800 to 837,200.

Australia's unemployment rate was a seasonally adjusted 5.4 per cent in April, compared with an unrevised 5.7 per cent in March.

Total employment rose by 27,300, to 10.799 million.

Full-time employment increased by 49,100 to 7.673 million and part-time employment was down 21,800 to 3,126 million.

The participation rate in April was 65.4 per cent, compared with 65.5 per cent in March.

Economists had expected the jobless rate to rise to 5.9 per cent.

"The outcome is at odds with the slowing economy, poor business surveys, and rampant deceleration in respected job ads series," TD Securities senior strategist Annette Beacher said.

"At face value, we are treating this outcome as a rogue number.

"Optimists may believe it is a result of fiscal pump-priming. We will see."

Data released on Wednesday showed a sharp 2.2 per cent jump in retail spending in March, coinciding with the rollout of welfare benefit bonuses as part of the federal government's second stimulus package.

The largest fall in unemployment was in New South Wales, where the rate dropped to 6.0 per cent in April from 6.8 per cent in March, following a spike from 5.9 per cent in February.

The jobless rate in South Australia declined to 5.5 per cent from 5.9 per cent while in Tasmania, the jobless rate shot to a staggering 6.2 per cent in April from just 4.4 per cent in March.

In Queensland the rate rose to 4.9 per cent from 4.8 per cent and in the ACT it was 2.8 per cent versus 2.7 per cent previously.

Rates in Victoria and the Northern Territory were both unchanged at 5.6 per cent and 4.1 per cent respectively.

JP Morgan senior economist Helen Kevans said the spike in national employment was barely believable.

"The spike in employment is in sharp contrast to anecdotal evidence indicating that labour market conditions continued to deteriorate in early 2009," she said in a research note.

"If history is anything to go by, though, this fall (in unemployment) could be quickly reversed."

She said the unemployment rate dropped from 6.2 per cent in February 1990 to 5.9 percent in March 1990, but closed the year at 7.7 per cent.

By the end of 1991, the jobless rate stood in double-digits at 10.1 per cent.

"We suspect a similar outcome from this recession, with our forecast calling for the jobless rate to soar to 9 per cent by the end of 2010."

The flow of announced job losses continued in April after Qantas Airways said it would cut 1,750 jobs - about 5 per cent of its workforce - as it battled slumping demand for travel.

In the same month, mining giant Rio Tinto said it would retrench about 700 workers from its Queensland workforce due to lower demand for aluminium. This came on top of the company's previously announced 14,000 global cull of its workforce.

The Australian dollar reacted positively to the figures.

The local currency was trading at $US0.7467 just before the figures were released at 1130 AEST, but rose to an intraday high of $US0.7551 shortly afterward.