Australia's unemployment rate in December has fallen to 5.0 per cent - the lowest level since January 2009, when the nation was dealing with the first impacts of the global financial crisis.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said on Thursday the jobless rate dropped 0.2 percentage points from 5.2 percent in November, beating expectations, with 11.417 million people in work.

Minister for Jobs, Senator Chris Evans said "Australia has achieved the biggest calendar year increase in employment on record.

"In December we saw modest job creation of 2,300 but importantly unemployment has fallen by 25,400 and is now under 600,000 for the first time since January 2009."

"This confirms that the fundamentals of our economy remain strong. We have successfully weathered the global financial crisis and emerged with record jobs growth," Senator Evans said.

"Australia's unemployment rate is among the lowest in the industrialised world - our 5.0 per cent unemployment contrasts with 9.4 per cent in the US; 9.8 per cent in France; 7.8 per cent in the UK and 7.6 per cent in Canada."

The Government remains confident that further significant inroads will be made into the unemployment rate in Australia, in line with current forecasts.

Among the states Queensland was the only one to record a rise in unemployment in December, with the rate climbing to 6 per cent from 5.6 per cent the previous month.

Economists could not say as to whether the wet weather, which started to affect Queensland's economy in December, were a cause of significant job losses at the time.