Australian Unemployment Rises to 5.2%; Stocks Rebound

Marcus Jacob
08 Mar, 2012
New York City

Australian stocks rebounded after easing for three days in a row and dropping nearly 3% in the week. February unemployment increased to 5.2% after corporation cut 15,400 jobs and strong Australian dollar hurt exporters and retailers.

[R]7:30 PM Sydney – Australian stocks rebounded after easing for three days in a row and dropping nearly 3% in the week. February unemployment increased to 5.2% after corporation cut 15,400 jobs and strong Australian dollar hurt exporters and retailers.[/R]

Australian stocks rebounded after sliding for three days in a row and the benchmark index losing 3%. Investors awaited the results of the Greek debt swap deal that is expected to attract enough participation from private investors to avoid a default.

The latest data on the unemployment sent another signal how the mining boom in Australia is not trickling down to the broader economy.

Australian unemployment rate increased to 5.2% in February after employers cut 15,400 jobs. The unemployment rate increased from 5.1% in January according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Full time employment was steady at 8.06 million in the month and part time employment declined 15,400 to 3.38 million.

The 80% surge in the Australian dollar against the U.S. dollar since 2008 has hurt exporters and retail sales. Mining industry continues to attract capital but creates relatively few jobs and represents only 20% of the overall economy.

The ASX 200 index increased 27.3 to 4,171.04 and All Ordinaries index gained 27.7 to 4,262.15.

The Australian dollar edged lower to close at $1.0514.

Stock Movers

AGL Energy increased 21 cents to $13.95 after the electricity distributor said it completed the placement of $650 million of subordinate notes.

Pacific Brands declined 2 cents to 66.5 cents on media speculation that its merger talks with the leveraged buyout investor KKR may have stalled. Separately, India banned the exports of cotton to meet the local demand.

Ivanhoe Australia Limited closed down 1 cent to $1.82 and the company said it started production of copper and gold at its Osborne processing plant in Queensland.

BHP Billiton Ltd increased 25 cents to $34.30, Rio Tinto Ltd increased 24 cents to $62.66 and Fortescue Metals Group increased 20 cents to $5.51.

Lynas Corporation Limited fell 2 cents to $1.08 and Iluka Resources closed up 46 cents to $16.46. Newcrest Mining increased 4 cents to $30.64 after gold prices rebounded in international markets.

Kagara plunged 7.8% or 1.5 cents to 17.5 cents after the company lowered its production estimate of zinc and copper.

Oil Search Limited increased 16 cents to $7.08, Santos Limited rose 54 cents at $14.14 and Woodside Petroleum increased 66 cents to $35.70.

Telstra rose 2 cents lower to 3.25.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia increased 38 cents to $48.04, Westpac closed up 11 cents to $20.41 and NAB increased 31 cents to $23.38. ANZ increased 17 cents to $23.17.

David Jones Limited decreased 5 cents to $2.55 and Harvey Norman Holdings closed rose 3 cents to $1.95. Woolworths fell 7 cents to $25.08.

Qantas Airways Ltd closed up 1 cent to $1.73, Virgin Australia closed up 0.1 cent to 44 cents and Flight Centre increased 54 cents to $21.78.

QR National closed up 8 cents to $3.84.