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The jobless rate in Australia was a seasonally adjusted 5.8 percent in February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.
That was well below forecasts for 6.3 percent and down sharply from 6.4 percent in January.
The Australian economy added 88,700 jobs last month to 13,006,900 - blowing away expectations for an increase of 30,000 following the increase of 29,100 in the previous month.
Full-time employment increased by 89,100 to 8,895,000 people, and part-time employment decreased by 500 to 4,111,900 people. Over the year to February 2021, full-time employment increased by 5,500 people and part-time employment decreased by 7,300 people.
The part-time share of employment over the past 12 months remained at 31.6 percent.
Over the year to February 2021, employment decreased 1,800 people, less than 0.1 percent.
The participation rate came in at 66.1 percent - unchanged from the previous month but shy of expectations for 66.2 percent.
The female participation rate added 0.3 percentage points to 61.4 percent and the male participation rate fell by 0.2 percentage points to 71.0 percent.
Unemployment decreased by 70,000 people (8 percent) in February. The unemployment rate declined by 0.5 percentage points to 5.8 per cent (from a revised January figure of 6.3 per cent). The unemployment rate remained 0.6 percentage points above March 2020, with around 89,000 more unemployed people.
The youth unemployment rate declined by 1.1 percentage points to 12.9 per cent, underpinned by a strong increase in the number of employed young women, up by 31,000 people.
Underemployment increased by 0.4 percentage points to 8.5 per cent in February, having fallen more than usual in January, to remain around its pre-pandemic level.
The underutilization rate, which combines unemployment and underemployment, decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 14.4 per cent. This was 0.3 percentage points above March 2020, and 5.8 percentage points below its peak in May 2020.
