The jobless rate hit 6.3% in July, pushed up by a surge in the number of people looking for work and returning to the near-13-year high seen at the start of the year.
It followed an upwardly revised 6.1% unemployment rate in June. However, it still remains shy of the 6.5% peak predicted by the Treasury and the Reserve Bank.
The rise came despite the number of people employed in the month increasing by 38,500, three times that expected by economists. The number of full-time workers rose by 12,400.
However, the unemployment rate was forced higher by a 0.3 percentage point jump in the participation rate to 65.1%, indicating there are a growing number of people looking for work.
The opposition spokesman on employment, Brendan O’Connor, said the Labor party was concerned at the rise in unemployment.
“We have not seen more than 800,000 people lining the unemployment queues for more than 20 years,” he said. “We have major concerns around all parts of Australia.
“[There are] more than 100,000 people extra lining unemployment queues, 50,000 below on the promise made before the election.
“These are very damning figures for a government that introduced a so-called jobs and family budget. It’s about time that [the prime minister] Tony Abbott started focusing on his real job, looking after the many Australians that are looking for work.”
Earlier on Thursday Abbott had defended the government’s record on employment when in Geelong.
“Everything this government does is about jobs and growth,” he said.
“You know, I was in Adelaide earlier this week to talk about ship building. Well, Australian naval ship building is about jobs and growth. I was talking about our free trade agreement with China and signing an MOU [memorandum of understanding] between the Adelaide produce markets and the world’s biggest produce market. It is about jobs and growth, again.
“I was with the South Australian premier talking about roads; roads are about jobs and growth. And today, talking about advanced manufacturing here in Geelong, that is about jobs and growth. Everything this government does is about jobs and growth.”
