Australia has achieved its ninth straight month of job gains, with 14,000 new jobs added to the economy in June.
Full-time employment grew by 62,000 jobs, while part-time employment decreased by 48,000. Full-time jobs have now increased by 115,400 positions in the past two months - the strongest streak of full-time job gains in 29 years, according to CommSec.
Economy growing at 'moderate' pace
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal 14,000 new jobs were added in June.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday show the unemployment rate has held steady at 5.6 per cent, which remains near its lowest level in four years after May's figures were revised up.
The more reliable figure of trend participation for 15-64 year olds, which controls for the effects of an ageing population, increased by 0.1 percentage points to 77.3 per cent in June.
NSW and Victoria did the heavy lifting in trend terms, adding 11,600 and 7300 jobs respectively.
Australia remains within touching distance of the floor of the so-called "natural rate of unemployment", according to a bulletin released by the Reserve Bank in June.
"Full-time employment has increased by around 187,000 persons since September 2016, with particular strength over the past five months, averaging around 30,000 persons per month," said the Bureau's chief economist Bruce Hockman. "Full-time employment now accounts for about 68 per cent of employment."
In a nod to the growth of the part-time economy, Mr Hockman said full-time employment was down from about 72 per cent a decade ago.
The strong figures are likely to be latched onto as further evidence that the rebound in the labour market is beyond doubt.
CommSec economist Craig James said analysts had been fretting about the lack of full-time jobs.
"In the space of a couple of months, those concerns have been knocked on their heads," he said.
"Over the past two months, 115,400 full-time jobs have been created, the biggest back-to-back job gain in 29 years [since January 1988]."
Over the past two months, 115,400 full-time jobs have been created, the biggest back-to-back job gain in 29 years.
CommSec economist Craig James
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull welcomed the figures in Melbourne on Thursday but warned sustained economic growth was not guaranteed.
"Tomorrow's prosperity can only be delivered by today's reforms," he said.
"So when we consider how we change the world in which we live, we can't hide under the doona," he said, acknowledging the future challenges of technology and automation to employment.
Economist Kate Hickie from Capital Economics said the surge in full-time jobs was likely to fuel expectations the Reserve Bank would begin to raise interest rates by the first half of 2018.
"But despite this latest improvement, there is still plenty of excess capacity in the labour market, which will keep a lid on wage growth," she said.
"As such, we expect that rates will remain on hold until 2019."