Australia's unemployment rate rose to its highest level in two decades last month, official data showed Thursday, as hundreds-of-thousands more people lost their jobs amid pandemic-induced shutdowns.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported the May unemployment rate ticked up to 7.1 percent as employment fell by a further 227,700 in May, slightly worse than market expectations.
The Australian dollar weakened against major currencies, and Sydney's ASX 200 stock market fell 1.6 percent on the news.
The unemployment rate had hovered around five percent before February when travel bans were introduced and businesses were forced to introduce social distancing measures.
The unemployment rate rose from a revised 6.4 percent in April and was up almost two percentage points year-on-year.
The last time the unemployment rate broke seven percent was in October 2001.