The unemployment rate has remained at 4 per cent, despite nearly 18,000 extra jobs being added to the economy in March.
The rate remains at its lowest level since the monthly jobs numbers were first collated in the late 1970s.
In fact, when taken to three decimal places, the current unemployment rate of 3.954 per cent is slightly lower than the previous low of 3.981, which was recorded in February 2008.
However, because the figures come from a survey, albeit a very large one, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) can only say it is 95 per cent sure that unemployment is somewhere between 3.7 and 4.1 per cent, making such fine comparisons effectively pointless.
"Lower rates were seen in the series before November 1974, when the survey was quarterly," ABS head of labour statistics, Bjorn Jarvis, said.
Callam Pickering, an Asia-Pacific economist for Indeed, said job creation was also skewed to full-time work in March, leading to an underemployment rate of 6.3 per cent, the lowest since November 2008.
"Over the past year, full-time employment has increased by around 400,000 people, while part-time employment has fallen by 64,500," he said.
'Jobseekers have more power'
Mr Pickering said all the signs pointed to strong jobs growth continuing.
"Vacancies are at record levels, with Australian businesses desperate to find new workers," he said.
Patrick Donahue is one of those business owners desperate to recruit more staff.
He owns a number of cafes, restaurants and bars in Brisbane, and has a staff of about 100, but they simply cannot keep up with customer demand.
"There are a few key roles … we're still chasing a sous-chef, second in charge in the kitchen — that's been pretty challenging to try to find," he told The Business.
"Assistant managers also seem to be a bit of a problem for us in a couple of our venues."
Mr Donahue suspects many hospitality workers who were stood down during COVID-19 shutdowns do not want to return to shift work, and have found alternative employment with more attractive conditions.
"I feel like a lot of the [people in the] hospitality industry sort of started to get that life balance back," he said.
"They're enjoying their nights and they're waking up early in the day time.
Mr Jarvis said there had been good news for young people looking for work over recent months.
"While young people were particularly impacted early in the pandemic and during the Delta [coronavirus wave], we have continued to see strong increases in youth employment over the past year," he observed.
"The youth employment-to-population ratio in March was the highest it had been since August 2008, at 64.8 per cent, and 4.6 percentage points higher than the start of the pandemic."
The broad strength of the jobs market has economists such as St George's Besa Deda very sure that the Reserve Bank will start raising interest rates in June, after the election is out of the way.
"Certainly you could make a case that the RBA could already be raising rates, given the potent mix of a faster than expected economic recovery, elevated inflationary pressures and a low unemployment rate," she told ABC News Channel.
Working hours washed away
The official ABS survey showed that the proportion of people aged 15 or over in work or looking for it remained steady near record highs at 66.4 per cent, seasonally adjusted.
However, it also showed a 0.6 per cent decline in total hours worked last month.
"With floods in New South Wales and Queensland, a higher than usual number of people reported working reduced hours due to bad weather in March," Mr Jarvis said.
The flooding also affected the data, disrupting survey collection in 15 regions of New South Wales and Queensland, including large swathes of Sydney and Brisbane.
Underemployment falls but 882,000 still want more work
Not everyone lost hours during the floods.
Brisbane-based casual security guard Imogen Bunting's hours picked up in recent weeks which made a big difference to not just her bank balance, but her mental well being.
"I've been working more than I usually have. I am finding myself feeling a lot calmer," she told The Business.
Her hours are starting to normalise, which means she can soon start to expect to work a lot fewer — about 15 to 25 hours a week.
"I don't feel I can breathe," she said of her normal working hours.
"I'm trying to save up to replace my laptop, my mobile phone and for car maintenance, like a general service, and I'm nervous about being able to cover those costs."
Ms Bunting is notified of her hours for the week each Monday, which she says makes it hard to plan her life and know how much money she will have coming in.
"I'd love a job that provided me security, preferably with at least a month's notice of the upcoming hours and when they're going to land," she said.
Like unemployment, underemployment is back around levels last seen in 2008, before the global financial crisis.
However, Ms Bunting is joined by nearly 900,000 other Australians who would like to, and are able to, work more hours than they currently are.
Donna Bennett is one of them.
Ms Bennett recently started a new job as a casual after-hours support worker at a crisis accommodation centre in Melbourne.
Before that, she had a two-month, full-time contract working in COVID accommodation.
She said returning insecure work caused a lot of anxiety.
"Working full time in my contract, I absolutely loved it and thrived in those conditions, and thoroughly enjoyed not being concerned about bills and just the life expenses, so the level of anxiety in my life went right down," she told The Business.
But her new employer can only commit to one or two, four-and-a-half-hour shifts a week.
"I would really love full-time work," she said.
"But, of course, I'm as near as unemployed and working on a casualised [basis]. There's no reassurance from week to week how are you going to survive, so the anxiety is really there."
