Unemployment dropped 0.3 points to 5.4% in April, with the male unemployment rate dropping 0.2% to 5.5% and the female unemployment rate falling 0.4% to 5.3%.

The number of people employed increased by 27,300 to nearly 10.8 million, while full-time employment increased by 49,100 to 7.6 million and part-time employment decreased by 21,800 to 3.1 million.

Unemployment decreased by 35,300 to 614,600, while the combined number of people seeking full-time and part-time work dropped by more than 35,000.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today the drop was welcome news but the government still expected unemployment rates to increase.

“We’re not getting carried away with one month’s figures,” Gillard told journalists in Melbourne this afternoon.

“We’ve always been up-front with the Australian people that we do expect the unemployment rate to rise, and our most recent forecast will be available at the time the budget is released next week.”

The unexpected drop in unemployment comes after a larger than expected boost in Australian retail sales was announced yesterday.

Retail spending increased 2.2% between February and March.

Despite the positive news, the ANZ job advertisement survey released on Monday showed that newspaper and internet job ads dropped by 44.6% from March 2008 to March 2009.