Treasurer Jim Chalmers responds to unemployment rate and jobs figures

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has responded to the unemployment figure released on Thursday, which shows that the rate rose to 4.1 per cent. It's the first time since 2022 that the unemployment rate has been above four per cent. “What we’re seeing in these figures is that the market continues to soften in expected ways,” Mr Chalmers said on Thursday. “We have seen our labour market has been weakening but it has been weakening from a quite incredibly strong and resilient base. “In the 46 years now since these monthly records were first kept there has only been one calendar year where every month of the calendar year has had unemployment south of four per cent and that was the year just finished. “So we enter this period of economic uncertainty from a position of genuine strength and the labour market is a big part of that story.”