Payroll job losses have slowed over recent weeks, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicates.
Over the seven weeks from mid-March to early May (14 March to 2 May), total payroll jobs fell by 7.3% the ABS reports.
Jobs in retail decreased 6% over the same period, compared to a 6.8% drop in the week ending April 18.
"The latest data shows a further slowing in the fall in COVID-19 job losses between mid-April and early May," ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.
"The largest net job losses over the seven weeks of the COVID-19 period, in percentage terms, were in Victoria and New South Wales, where the falls in payroll jobs were around 8.4% and 7.7%.
"Payroll jobs worked by people under 20 continued to show the largest falls (-14.6%), and were particularly high in some states and territories, such as the Australian Capital Territory (-19.2%)," he said.
Jarvis added that the week to week changes have reduced as Australia works its way through the disruption.
"The week-to-week changes are much smaller than they were early in the COVID-19 period.
"The decrease in the number of jobs in the week ending May 02 was 1.1%, which was only slightly larger than the 0.9% increase in the week ending April 25," he said.
The data was released on May 19.
