Sydney: Australian unemployment fell to 5.7 percent in November, beating analyst forecasts, official figures showed on Thursday.
The number of people in full-time work rose by 30,800 to a seasonally adjusted 7,627,000, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.
Economists had expected unemployment to rise to 5.9 percent from the 5.8 percent posted in October.
Australia last month predicted the jobless rate would peak at 6.75 percent in mid-2010, sharply downgrading a forecast of 8.5 percent made in the May budget.
Australia was the only developed economy to avoid a technical recession during the global slowdown and posted world-beating growth of 0.6 percent in the June quarter.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 12:53