Labour markets had performed very poorly in November 2019. The labour force participation rate and the employment rate had fallen to their all-time lows. These metrics were on a mildly declining trend but the fall in November was steeper than warranted by the trend.
Weekly estimates had indicated an improvement in the labour force participation rate in December, but only to the mean value along the mildly declining trend. The December LPR did indeed recover to 42.85 per cent from the earlier month's 42.37 per cent. Similarly, the employment rate recovered from 39.2 per cent in November to 39.55 per cent
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