“Quite a lot of ugliness” in the labour market as unemployment hits 6.9%

Australia’s official unemployment rate has risen 0.1 points to 6.9 per cent as about 30,000 jobs disappeared in September.

Underemployment – the number of people who are working but wish to work more –  also increased, rising to 11.4 per cent.

When you add the two figures together, more than 18% of Australia’s workforce is not fully utilised, a figure which AMP Capital’s Chief Economist Dr Shayne Oliver calls “ugly”.

“A lot of people have given up looking for a job, or their job is being propped up by JobKeeper,” Dr Oliver tells Brooke Corte.

“If you adjust for those factors then the real unemployment rate is probably just below 10 per cent, so there’s still quite a lot of ugliness in the labour market out there.”

Click play to hear the full interview: