Australia’s unemployment rate rose to 6.1 per cent in September, official figures show.

Unemployment in August was 6.0 per cent.

The rate is slightly less than expected as economists had predicted Thursday’s jobs figure for September to show an unemployment rate of 6.2 per cent.

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There has been concern over the validity of the jobs figures after the ASX admitted there were problems with its latest numbers.

The ABS admitted on Wednesday that there were problems with its July and August employment data, which showed a spike in the jobless rate and a huge rise in employment respectively.

Following the announcement, economists revised their forecasts for September, expecting unemployment to come in at 6.1 per cent, with 15,500 jobs added to the economy, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The ABS said it would replace seasonally adjusted labour force estimates already published for July and August with unadjusted figures, and that the unadjusted and seasonally adjusted figures for September would be the same.

The total number of people with jobs fell 29,700 to 11.593 million in September, seasonally adjusted.

Full-time employment rose 21,600 to 8.029 million and part-time employment was down 51,300 to 3.564 million.

The participation rate – those that have a job, are looking for work or are ready to start work – fell to 64.5 per cent, from 64.7 per cent in August.

The number of Australians with jobs rose by a huge 121,000 in August, the largest monthly increase since records began in 1978, the ABS reported last month.

The future of jobs

The International Monetary Fund expects Australia will have the worst jobless rate in the Asia-Pacific region bar the Philippines, over the next two years.

The IMF is predicting a rate of 6.2 per cent in 2014 and 6.1 per cent for 2015.

Only the Philippines is higher in the region, with respective rates of 6.9 and 6.8 per cent.

Australia’s labour force numbers have been volatile in recent months with the unemployment rate swinging between a 12-year high of 6.4 per cent and 6.1 per cent.

-with AAP