Australia’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3% in November, a slight increase of 0.2%, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) at the start of Asian trading on Thursday, December 11. This was better than market expectations, which had anticipated a rise to 4.4%. The labor force participation rate also declined slightly to 66.7% from 66.9% in October.

The Australian economy lost an estimated 21,300 jobs in November, bringing the total number of employed individuals to 14,655,700. This followed the addition of approximately 40,000 jobs in October, while expectations had anticipated the creation of around 20,000 jobs.