Australia's unemployment rate is going to be under heavy scrutiny whilst this coronavirus outbreak is going on.
Yesterday the chief economist from major ASX bank Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) predicted that Australia's unemployment rate will rise 7%.
Every month the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) announces Australia's unemployment rate, so we can see whether the number of Australia's employed is going up, down or around the same.
What happened in February to Australia's employment rate?
The ABS announced that the unemployment rate in Australia decreased by 0.2% to 5.1%.
The number of people employed increased by 26,700 to 13.02 million. Full time employees rose by 6,700 and the number of part time employees increased by 20,000. As you'd expect, the number of unemployed decreased by 26,400.
The main numbers were good, though the participation rate and monthly hours worked slightly decreased.
What does this mean in regards to the coronavirus?
Except for the effects on China, the coronavirus hadn't really affected Australia or most of the world during February. It has only been in March that things have escalated and that we've started to hear of people being made redundant.
So it won't be until March when we start seeing the individual numbers play out in the national.
Companies are being encouraged to keep their employees on and keep paying them to ensure the economy doesn't get into a negative spiral.
A rising unemployment rate would have obvious negative effects for companies like SEEK Limited (ASX: SEK), Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES) and so on.
We've already seen companies like Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) announce some difficult decisions about employees. Hopefully there are few other businesses that have to announce such large negative news about employees in the coming weeks.
