Australia: Almost 600,000 people lost work in April
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Australia: Almost 600,000 people lost work in April
Australia has suffered its single largest monthly fall in the number of people holding a job, with a record 594,000 drop in the number of workers during April.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed the unemployment rate spiking a full percentage point to 6.2 per cent last month. It's the highest jobless rate since September 2015.
"This is a tough day for Australia. A very tough day," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a press conference in Canberra after the data's release.
"Almost 600,000 jobs have been lost. Every one of them devastating for those Australians, for their families, for their communities. A very tough day."
Mr Morrison said the impending economic downturn would be tougher than the global financial crisis. "This is harder - we haven't seen this before and for young people who have never experienced that, this is beyond anything they could imagine."
The number of officially unemployed people jumped by 104,500 to more than 823,300. The previous largest increase in unemployment in a single month was 65,400 in October 1982 during that year's recession. The jobless rate peaked at 10.5 per cent the following year.
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