Almost 600,000 people lost their job in Australia between March and April, according to the latest labour force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The data, which was released yesterday, paints a grim picture on the state of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unemployment increased by 104,500 people to 823,300, and the unemployment rate increased by 1.0 percentage point from 5.2% to 6.2%.
The discrepancy between the decrease in employment and the number of unemployed people is explained by those exiting the workforce completely, ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.
"The large drop in employment did not translate into a similar sized rise in the number of unemployed people because around 489,800 people left the labour force," he said.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hours worked was also extensive with total hours worked falling by approximately 9.2% between March and April.
As a result, the number of underemployed people also rose sharply (up 603,300 people, to a total of 1.8 million people), and the underemployment rate rose to a record high 13.7% (up 4.9 percentage points).
Monthly changes in key populations - Source: 6202.0 - Labour Force, Australia, Apr 2020: Australian Bureau of Statistics
Speaking on the figures, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the figures were extreme, but expected.
"This is a tough day for Australia, a very tough day," he said yesterday.
"Almost 600,000 jobs have been lost, every one of them devastating for those Australians, for their families, for their communities.
"Terribly shocking, although not unanticipated.
"We knew there would be hard news as the pandemic wreaks an impact on Australia as it is on countries all around the world. And so it has been the case," he said.
However, May could prove to be a turning point for jobs, with newly-released Seek data indicating an increase in job ads posted.
"It is encouraging to see that we may be at a turning point in the employment market as the latest figures in May point to an easing in the rate of job advertising decline," Seek ANZ MD Kendra Banks said.
"In the week ended 10 May, job advertising was down 59.7% compared to the same week last year.
"At the lowest point in April, week ended 19 April shows a job ad decline of 69.1% compared to the same week in 2019.
"This 10% shift means we may have turned a corner after reaching a particularly low point of decline," she said.