The jobless rate in Australia held close to its lowest point in nearly 50 years, as underemployment levels and youth unemployment continued to fall.

Over 20,000 full-time roles were added in March, and less than 3,000 part-time jobs were lost, holding the unemployment rate the same at a seasonally adjusted 4.0%, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

“4.0% is the lowest the unemployment rate has been in the monthly survey,” said Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS.

The only other months of 4% unemployment in Australia, apart from February and March this year, were in February and August 2008, reports The Guardian.

“The unemployment rate for women fell from 3.8% to 3.7%, the lowest it has been since May 1974. It remained at 4.2% for men, its second-lowest level since November 2008, and just above the rate from December 2021 of 4.1%,” Jarvis added.

Overall employment figures continue to rally from the Covid impact, with a total of 13,389,900 people now in work, around 400,000 more than the beginning of 2020. Moreover, the participation rate stayed the same as February at 66.4%.

In regard to youth employment, taking into account people between 15 and 24 years of age, the rate rose by 36,000 in March, putting the youth jobless rate at 8.3%.

“While young people were particularly impacted early in the pandemic and during the Delta period, we have continued to see strong increases in youth employment over the past year,” Jarvis said. 

Australia’s underemployment rate also fell by 0.2 percentage points to 6.3%, the ABS findings showed.

The Australian Dollar declined following the report to trade at 74.51 U.S. cents at the time of writing. Three-year government bond yields also fell and were trading at 2.361%, reports Business Times.