Oz long-term jobless static

The number of jobless for less than a year has fallen by 28,000 to 573,000. Photo / Thinkstock

Australian unemployment may have edged back since its peak late last year but the number of long-term unemployed has hardly budged.

The unemployment rate peak of 6.3 per cent in January fell to 6.0 per cent in June. At the same time the number counted as unemployed - actively looking for a job and ready to start - fell by 32,000 to 756,000.

But the number of long-term jobless fell by only 3000 from the January high to 183,000 in June.

The number of jobless for less than a year has fallen by 28,000 to 573,000.

In other words, virtually all of the fall in unemployment has been among the shorter-term unemployed.

Long-term unemployment usually starts coming down the best part of a year after shorter-term unemployment begins to drop. So long-term unemployment should start coming down more noticeably over the second half of the year.

But the progress is unlikely to be rapid or long-lived because progress on shorter-term unemployment has just about ground to a halt.

With luck, long-term unemployment might fall as far as 160,000 beforeit stalls, but the economy will have to pick up for it do much better than that.

- AAP