Prior to the releases of the data, financial markets gave another rate cut in June a 41 per cent chance, but the stronger-than-expected reading saw that betting drop to 20 per cent after the release. Data concerns While many will cheer a lower unemployment rate, senior economist at Macquarie, Brian Redican, said he was not surprised to see the unemployment figure return to 5.5 per cent. He said recent changes in the ABS data sample did not reflect the employment intentions of companies. ‘‘The big increase in employment is mainly due to the sample rotation,’’ he said. ‘‘I do not think this data gives an accurate picture of what is happening in the labour market at the moment ... if you speak to companies they have different hiring intentions.’’ Mr Redican said there would be more upwards pressure on wages if the unemployment figure really was a low as 5.5 per cent.

However, a spokeswoman for the bureau said labour market figures were a lagging indicator and the trend figures were more accurate than the seasonally adjusted figures. ‘‘The online collection and the sample would not be impacting the estimates for this month,’’ she said. ‘‘The employment rate and unemployment is a lagging economic indicator. It takes time for it to reflect the changes in economic conditions.’’ The bureau classifies people as ‘‘employed’’ if they are over 15 years old and spent at least one hour working during the sample week, either for pay or in a family business. People are classified as ‘‘unemployed’’ if they were not employed and were actively looking for work in the four weeks before the sample week, or were waiting for work to start. The figures released on Thursday were collected in the first few weeks of April.

Economists said the higher-than-expected unemployment rate in March was one of the reasons why the Reserve Bank moved to slash the cash rate to a half-a-century low of 2.75 per cent on Tuesday. Michael Blythe, chief economist at CBA, said it paid to be suspicious of big moves, "but there is clearly a positive job pulse in the Australian economy". "This highlights one of the reasons why most people weren't expecting to see a rate cut, because the domestic economy does seem to be travelling pretty well," said Mr Blythe. "Given what they've (RBA) said, we think they'll cut rates again at some point, but they won't be in a rush to come back after the rate cut this week." State by state

In New South Wales, the jobless rate fell to 5.3 per cent from 5.5 per cent. Victoria saw the jobless rate rise to 5.8 per cent to 5.7 per cent. Queensland unemployment rate fell sharply from 5.9 per cent to 5.6 per cent, while in South Australia it rose from 5.8 per cent to 5.7 per cent. Western Australian unemployment rose to 5.2 per cent from 4.8 per cent, and in Tasmania it rose from 7.3 per cent to 7.5 per cent. In non-seasonally adjusted terms, joblessness in the Northern Territory rose from 4.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent, while the ACT was steady at 4.6 per cent. A weak jobless report today was expected to spur another cut by the central bank again, possibly in June, analysts said. It would also have continued the recent spate of soft economic data, which has seen questions raised about the strength of the housing recovery and highlighted the weakness in the manufacturing sector and slow private credit sector growth.

RBA governor Glenn Stevens noted in his statement following Tuesday's decision that unemployment had risen slightly in recent months. ''Employment has continued to grow but more slowly than the labour force, so that the rate of unemployment has increased a little, though it remains relatively low,'' Mr Stevens said. ANZ jobs ads survey Earlier this week, fresh ANZ data showed that job advertisements in newspapers and on the internet fell for a second straight month in April. According to the survey, job ads on the Internet dipped 1.1 percent to 131,862, to be down 17.3 percent on the year. Newspaper ads fell 6.5 percent in April, extending a long-running shift toward online advertising.

Meanwhile, job-search website Seek reported today that Australian states with strong mining activity recorded a slow-down in the decline of new job ad volumes for April. "During April, Western Australia showed a decline in job ad volume of only 1.1 per cent, the smallest decline in three months, with previous declines as steep as 5 per cent,'' the company revealed. "Queensland continues to fluctuate with a decline of 1.5 per cent for the month of April, compared to declines of 0.6 per cent and 1.6 per cent for March and February respectively." Managing director Joe Powell said it was too early to say whether the slow-down in decline represented a renewal of the labour market in these states or if it was an aberration. Australia’s largest job markets of New South Wales and Victoria posted sharper declines in new job ads volume, down 2.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively, despite more stable numbers for the previous four months, according to Seek.

Loading Unemployment rate (per cent, seasonally adjusted) April: 5.5

March: 5.6

February: 5.4

January: 5.4

December 2012: 5.4

November: 5.3

October: 5.4

September: 5.4

August: 5.1

July: 5.2 New jobs added April: 50,100

March: -36,100

February: 71,500

January: 10,400

December: -5500

November: 13,900

October: 10,700

September: 14,500

August: -8800