Unemployment rate steady at 6.2pc as 24,100 jobs added
The unemployment rate has held steady at 6.2 per cent as over 24,000 jobs were added last month.
The steady result is based on revised September figures, after the Bureau of Statistics was forced to re-evaluate its seasonal adjustment figures in light of recent survey changes.
Economist forecasts in Bloomberg's survey centred on a 6.2 per cent unemployment rate, with most expecting around 20,000 jobs to be added.
In further positive news, the participation rate - the proportion of those aged over 15 in work or looking for it - also ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 64.6 per cent.
Another positive sign was a 1.6 per cent increase in the total number of hours that Australians were estimated to have worked last month to just over 1.6 billion.
The more stable trend figures reflected the new seasonally adjusted data, with unemployment steady at 6.2 per cent from an upwardly revised September estimate, and participation matching the headline numbers.
The data were solid enough to very briefly drive the Australian dollar back above 86 US cents, following a strong overnight decline that had taken it to four-year lows.
However, the bounce was short-lived, and the local currency was buying 85.68 US cents by 11:40am (AEDT).
Economists still harbour some doubts about the reliability of the data, even though an internal ABS review attributed recent skewed estimates to changes in the survey that appear to have changed how a significant number of people answered certain questions.
"The numbers we've seen in the last two or three months now in the revised treatment of the seasonal numbers look pretty decent, so I think it's a plausible explanation," JP Morgan's chief economist Stephen Walters told Reuters.
"But I think unfortunately there was a credibility hit to the numbers. So I think there's going to be a challenge now, for months I suspect, to see how the new regime plays out."
Michael Turner from RBC was even more sceptical.
"Even with the ABS's best efforts to get the seasonal adjustment right, it will be a while before faith can be restored," he told Reuters.
"So the market has not really moved a lot on this and we will take it with a bag of salt, not just the grain."
However, UBS chief economist Scott Haslem said there is enough consistency in this month's data - both internally and with private surveys - to believe it paints a fairly accurate picture of the labour market.
"At 0.9 per cent year-on-year, the pace of jobs growth is only modestly below that implied by a range of leading indicators, including SEEK, NAB and the ANZ job ads survey," he wrote in a note on the ABS figures.
"These data continue to suggest jobs growth should pick-up over coming months, stalling the rise in the unemployment rate, potentially edging it down by mid-2015."
