The following is a selection of analysts' comments after the Australian Bureau of Statistics said employment rose 43,000 in October. This compares with a forecast 20,000 increase. Full-time employment rose 19,300. The unemployment rate was 5.3 percent, the lowest level since the monthly labour force series started in 1978, against a forecast 5.6 percent, while the participation rate was 63.7 percent versus an expected 63.6 percent.
"Very strong set of numbers for October. Obviously the unemployment rate falling to a new all-time low will is a boon for consumer confidence going forward. The composition of employment shows pretty solid growth in full-time jobs as well as the part-time sector.
We may have a bit of a fall back in the month of November. But it (the October data) just highlights how strong the labour market is in Australia at the moment."
"That's over 100,000 jobs in the last two months, indicating that the overall economy remains very strong. While there's some adjustment-taking place in the housing market, broadly the economy remains quite robust.
The labour market was something that the Reserve Bank spent some time focusing on in their statement on monetary policy (on Monday). I suspect it's a bit stronger than they would have thought.
"They made it pretty clear in the week that they think the next move in rates is up but there's no near-term trigger.
The significant thing will be if the tightness of the labour market feeds through into wages and prices pressure, that's what they'll be looking for.
They won't move just on the unemployment rate alone they'll need to see how that develops into wage and price pressures but you would suspect that with the low level of the unemployment rate we will see that wage and price pressure coming through next year."