Australia’s unemployment rate remained steady at 6% in June.

The total number of people with jobs rose 7,300 to 11.769 million in June, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday, which was better than expectations of a fall of 5,000.

Unemployment increased by 12,800 to 756,100. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work increased by 27,200 to 541,200 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased by 14,500 to 214,900.

The participation rate, which refers to the number of people either employed or are actively looking for work, remained steady at 64.8%.

New South Wales recorded the largest increase in employment with 11,300 new jobs, while South Australia lost 5,700 full-time jobs and and Victoria’s employment rate dropped by 5,500.

South Australia’s jobless rate is now the highest in the country at 8.2%, up from 7.6% in May.



SA’s employment minister, Gail Gago, said the state was “really struggling” with high unemployment.

“As we move from a reliance on traditional manufacturing industries, coupled with collapsing commodities prices, we see South Australian unemployment rates really struggling,” Gago said.

“This is not helped by the federal government’s withdrawal of support for our auto manufacturing and navy shipbuilding industries, not to mention severe federal budget cuts in the health and education sectors.”



The chief executive for Business SA, Nigel McBride, said unemployment had reached alarming levels.



“The state government must make job creation its highest priority,” McBride said.



“Even if it means going into debt the government must direct money towards infrastructure which creates long-term, sustainable economic growth.”

In Western Australia, the mining sector downturn has caused unemployment to rise to 5.8%, up from 5.1% in May.

“WA is feeling the brunt of the job losses in mining and probably dampening some of the few positives that are coming out of the other industries which are actually adding jobs,” CommSec’s Savanth Sebastian said.