The official unemployment rate fell slightly to 5.8 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in November.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show 71,400 jobs were created in the penultimate month of the year, 41,000 of which were full time.

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The figures bucked the forecasts, with a Bloomberg survey of economists showing most predicted the jobless rate would rise to 6 per cent.

In Queensland, the unemployment rate fell from 6.1 per cent to 5.9 per cent.

It fell from 5.5 to 5.2 per cent in New South Wales, from 4.4 to 4.3 per cent in the Northern Territory, and in South Australia it dropped from 7.6 to 7.3 per cent.

In Victoria the unemployment rate rose from 5.6 to 6.2 per cent, while in Tasmania it rose from 6.5 to 6.6 per cent.

Western Australia also saw a rise in the jobless rate, which rose from 6.4 to 6.6 per cent.