SYDNEY : Australia's unemployment rate edged up to 5.8 percent from 5.7 percent in October as growing confidence brought job-seekers back to the market, official data showed Thursday.

Some 24,500 extra jobs were outstripped by a surprise 35,000 jump in the number of people seeking work, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said.

Most were part-time positions, which grew by 21,500, while full-time jobs rose by 2,900, the ABS said.

The modest rise back to August jobless levels reflected a fairly consistent picture of employment since May, said AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver.

"There were still basically more people entering the labour force than jobs created thanks to population growth and people getting more confident and coming back to look for work," Oliver told AFP.

He said the labour force surge of 35,000 was an "unusually high number" and would be vital as resource-rich Australia gears up for an expected mining boom.

Canberra recently sharply upgraded its growth and jobs forecasts, tipping unemployment to peak at 6.75 percent, instead of the 8.5 percent flagged in the May budget.

Unemployment fell unexpectedly for the first time in five months in September to 5.7 percent, following world-beating economic growth of 0.6 percent in the three months to June.

Australia was the only major Western nation to avoid a recession and last week raised interest rates for a second successive month to 3.5 percent.

- AFP /ls