4.27% Unemployment rate for Western Australia Full Time Male employment seekers in August 2011.

Unemployment rates released in September 2011 from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a change in Unemployment over the last 20 years, for the month of August in each year as:

11.60% Aug-1991
11.56% Aug-1992
9.28% Aug-1993
7.63% Aug-1994
6.63% Aug-1995
8.03% Aug-1996
7.09% Aug-1997
7.18% Aug-1998
6.19% Aug-1999
6.27% Aug-2000
7.68% Aug-2001
6.29% Aug-2002
5.70% Aug-2003
4.02% Aug-2004
3.98% Aug-2005
2.52% Aug-2006
2.87% Aug-2007
1.98% Aug-2008
4.98% Aug-2009
3.43% Aug-2010
4.27% Aug-2011

The time effect of this can be seen in the following graph:

In the long term, the current figures are mediocre, as the graph shows that the figures for Western Australia are rising faster than they were falling in the recent years, although in comparison to the previous 20 years, still not too bad..

One example is the average for the five years 2002 to 2006, which was 4.50%, just a little higher than todays 4.27%.

If we look at the first 10 years of the above, we see that the average was 8.15%.  That average makes our current figures appear pretty good, although nowhere near as good as the 2008 low point of 1.98% Unemployment.

Australian Unemployment Rate, Full Time Males, August 2011

• 4.27% Western Australia
• 4.45% Victoria
• 4.81% New South Wales
• 5.22% South Australia
• 5.37% Tasmania
• 5.68% Queensland

Source: ABS: 6202.0 Labour Force, Table 12