Celebrating all time lows doesn’t happen often, but NSW is cheering at September’s unemployment rates, the lowest in NSW since monthly records began in 1978.

Falling to 3.3 per cent in September, the unemployment rate fell by 0.1 per cent from August, remaining below the national unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent. 

Regional records are only available until July 2022, although they indicate that NSW Far West and Orana were following a similar trend, with unemployment falling down to 4.5 per cent in July. 

While the region has shown a positive downwards trend for unemployment, it is far from pre-pandemic rates which varied between 2-3 per cent, and hovered at 1.7 per cent in the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.

Treasurer Matt Kean said the rise in employment across the state came from 17,900 more people securing part-time roles in September. 

Mr Kean said the new low “... is important when we’re seeing the challenges of interest rates climbing and inflation rising.”

“Employment growth is booming in NSW, driven by a rise in part-time employment and the robust NSW economy,” he said.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said the nation-wide fall is a result of a combination of factors.

“The large fall in the unemployment rate this month reflects more people than usual entering employment and also lower than usual numbers of employed people becoming unemployed,” Mr Jarvis said. 

“Together these flows reflect an increasingly tight labour market, with high demand for engaging and retaining workers, as well as ongoing labour shortages” he said. 

In short, businesses can’t afford to lose employees, which in turn lessens the staff-turnover in the workplace.  

The youth unemployment rate in our region has not fared so well, having risen by 15.5 per cent between July 2020-22. 

Standing at 17.9 per cent in the Far West and Orana Region, the youth unemployment rate is now 9 per cent higher than the state average. 

Other statewide changes include the female participation rate up by 0.1 per cent to 61.8 per cent, and monthly hours worked in NSW rose by 0.2 per cent in September. 

Employment in NSW is now 157,500 above and around 4 per cent higher than its pre-pandemic level.