Canberra, Jul 18 (IANS): Australia's unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.1 per cent in June from 4 per cent in May, official labour force figures published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed on Thursday.

The total number of employed Australians rose by 50,200 between May and June but was offset by the number of jobless Australians rising by 9,700 in the same period, Xinhua news agency reported.

The participation rate which measures the proportion of working-age Australians who are either employed or actively looking for work rose from 66.8 per cent in May to 66.9 per cent in June.

"The participation rate in June was only 0.1 percentage point lower than the historical high of 67.0 per cent in November 2023," Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at ABS, said in a statement.

Overall, 608,200 unemployed people in Australia were actively looking for work in June. Jarvis noted that unemployment has increased from a low of 491,000 people in October 2022 but remained 100,000 people lower than prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The unemployment rate was 0.5 percentage points higher than June last year, and 1.1 percentage points lower than March 2020," he said.

The ABS data revealed that the total number of hours worked by Australians rose by 0.8 per cent between May and June despite an increase in sick leave.

Jarvis said 4.5 per cent of employed Australians could not work their usual hours in June because they were ill compared to the pre-pandemic June average of 3.6 per cent.