THE Australian jobs story just keeps getting better with new figures today showing the strongest growth in jobs in the nation's history.

Three-hundred thousand jobs were created in the past eight months, with 39,100 added in April alone.

Despite a fall in part-time employment, by 32,200 jobs, the nation's unemployment rate stayed steady at 5.1 per cent last month while total employment closed in on the 10 million mark.

Australia's 10 millionth worker is likely to be working by the end of the financial year.

With unemployment at a 28-year low, Treasurer Peter Costello said today there had never been a better time to find work.

"People have never had a better chance of getting a job in the last 28 years than they had in the month of April 2005," he told Parliament.

New South Wales recorded the biggest fall in unemployment, dipping 0.4 percentage points to 5.1 per cent, while it fell to 4.8 per cent in Western Australia.

But it rose in Queensland (up to 5 per cent from 4.3 per cent), Victoria (up to 5.5 per cent from 5.4 per cent) and Tasmania (up to 6.8 per cent from 6 per cent).

Unemployment remained at 5.2 per cent in South Australia.

On a trend measure, unemployment stayed steady in both the Northern Territory at 6.0 per cent and the ACT, which enjoys the nation's lowest unemployment rate at 3.3 per cent.

Despite the unemployment rate staying steady, the actual number of people out of work increased by 1600 to 540,900.

The number of people looking for full-time work increased by 7700 to 387,600 while the number looking for part-time work dropped by 6100 to 153,300.

Commsec chief equities economist Craig James said the days of sub-5 per cent unemployment were within grasp.

The 300,000 jobs added in the past eight months was the largest increase ever recorded, Mr James said.

"The jobless rate is finding it hard to break through the 5 per cent barrier," he said.

"But the continued strength of lead indicators like job ads suggest that it's a matter of time before the jobless rate has a four in front."

The tight jobs market, however, will also keep pressure on the Reserve Bank (RBA), which may be tempted to move with higher interest rates, depending on the impact of the government's budget tax cuts.

JP Morgan economist Jarrod Kerr said the figures continued to show the labour market remained strong.

"The weaker growth in employment, at face value, implies that economic growth has slowed, but the maintenance of the unemployment rate at a near three-decade low, still means there are lingering risks of a wage breakout," he said.

"This helps explain why the RBA maintains a tightening bias."