The unemployment in Queensland remained steady at the end of 2017, sitting at 5.9 per cent (the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 6 per cent), after a high of 6.6 per cent in February and a low of 5.7 per cent in August of last year.
Queensland continues to be behind New South Wales and Victoria, with their unemployment rates of 4.6 and 5.5 per cent respectively. However, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Queensland was the state which last year experienced the strongest annual growth in trend employment (at 4.6 per cent), followed by New South Wales (at 3.5 per cent).
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced that 143,900 jobs have been created in Queensland since January 2015.
“Since becoming Premier, I have made sure that we have had a strong focus on supporting economic opportunity and jobs growth,” Ms Palaszczuk said. “That’s why we have a four year, $44 billion infrastructure program and why we have successful programs like Skilling Queenslanders for Work and our very successful Back to Work program.”
Over 20,000 of jobs added to Queensland payroll since January 2015 are in public service.