WA unemployment at 6pc

Western Australian employment fell in February in seasonally adjusted terms while the unemployment rose slightly to 6 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In trend terms however, which the ABS argues is the best measure of underlying moves in the market, the WA unemployment rate remained steady at 6.1 per cent.

Total employment was lower by 1,000 people in trend terms at 1,347,000, while 800 fewer people were unemployed.

The net impact was a reduction in the labour force and a fall in the participation rate to 68.1 per cent.

Taken together, it indicates the state’s economy is performing well in withstanding the mining downturn.

National seasonally adjusted unemployment was down 0.2 per cent at 5.8 per cent.

CommSec chief economist Craig James said the result was a mixed bag nationally.

“Encouragingly, the gains were in full-time employment,” he said.

“On the flipside employment consolidated for the third consecutive month, a result that has also seemingly shown up in the modest pullback in the job ads series.

“However there is always volatility in the monthly data and a look at the longer-term data suggests a credible improvement is taking place.

“A total of 295,900 job seekers found work in 2015,marking the strongest calendar year result since 2007.

“And in that context a couple of months of consolidation are not overly concerning.

“In addition the trend unemployment rate is holding at a 26-month low.”

St George Bank chief economist Hans Kunnen took a similar view.

“While the job gain was below expectations, it isn’t unusual for employment to disappoint after a period of stronger-than-expected job growth,” Mr Kunnen said.

“The annual pace of growth has softened to a more realistic pace given the state of the economy, and some weaker employment growth over the course of this year does not come as a complete surprise.”