Australia's unemployment rate is expected to have fallen in August as the nation's economy continues to pick up steam, economists say. But analysts are uncertain as to what impact the hiring of election workers in the month will have on the jobless number.

Official Labour force figures due on Thursday are forecast to show total employment to have increased by 30,000 in August, with the unemployment rate falling to 5.2 per cent, according to the median of 11 economists surveyed by AAP.

TD Securities senior strategist Annette Beacher said she expected 25,000 jobs to have been added in the month, while her prediction for the jobless rate matched the median forecast.

"We're targeting the yearly growth rate," she said in reference to TD's prediction for jobs growth.

"Annual growth has been picking up year on year."

However, Ms Beacher allowed for a higher number given the temporary hiring by the Australian Election Commission (AEC) in the lead up to the August 21 poll.

"A chunk of these jobs are filled by people not ordinarily looking for work and therefore not normally counted in the labour force, hence a small rise in participation is likely as well as a small fall in the unemployment rate," she said.

A spokesman for the AEC, Phil Diak, said the majority of the 70,000 hired by the electoral authority were employed for polling day only.

But he said a small proportion had been employed for pre-polling in the lead up to the election.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) typically conducts the survey during the two-week period beginning on the Sunday that falls in the interval from the fifth and eleventh of the month.

Accordingly, the interviews for August were conducted in the fortnight beginning on Sunday, August 8 and ending on Saturday, August 21 - election day.

But the information obtained - including whether the respondent was employed or unemployed - refers to the week ending on the Saturday before the interview date.

So interviews gathered information about employment conditions in the weeks August 1 to 7 and August 8 to 14.

JP Morgan economist Ben Jarman said it was impossible to determine how much of an impact those temporary worker would have.

"A big swing factor on Thursday will be how many jobs from election hiring there will be," he said.

"It's hard to get a gauge on that because it comes down to whether those predicted people were in the survey or not."

Mr Jarman, who predicted a jobless rate of 5.2 per cent, said the slight fall in the jobless rate was a function of the growing participation rate.

We expect things to have tightened on the private sector side given things have grown so strongly in the past six months," he said.

Economists expect the participation rate, the proportion of the population either in work or actively seeking a job, to be at 65.6 per cent, up from 65.5 the month before.

"That's a little bit of a pay back after that fairly significant spike in the month before," Mr Jarman said.

"For the first time in a while the increase in participation couldn't be fully absorbed by the labour market."

Source: www.check4jobs.com.au

Article By: http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news

Related Job Link: www.check4jobs.com.au/unemployment-falls