* April employment -30.6K vs +15K consensus * Job losses entirely led by part-time work * April unemployment 5.5% vs 5.6% consensus * Underemployment hits 7-year trough * A$, benchmark share index climb to day’s high (Adds economist comment) SYDNEY, May 20 (Reuters) - Australia’s jobless rate fell for a sixth consecutive month in April to the lowest in a year despite a drop in employment as fewer people went looking for work, sending the local dollar and share market climbing. Thursday’s figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed a decline of 30,600 jobs in April, confounding economists’ expectations for a 15,000 increase. The decline was entirely led by part-time positions which slumped by 64,400 while full-time work climbed 33,800. Unemployment eased to 5.5%, the lowest since April 2020, and marking a remarkable recovery from the top of 7.4% hit last July when coronavirus lockdowns tipped the economy into recession. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the unemployment rate at 5.6%. The participation rate declined to 66% to be back to around pre-pandemic levels. Underemployment, or the number of people already working but looking for more hours, hit a seven-year trough of 7.8%. In response to the better-than-expected unemployment figures, the Australian dollar jumped to the day’s high of $0.7744 from a one-week low of $0.7710 touched on Wednesday. Australia’s benchmark share index also hit a day’s high of 6,999.6 points after the data. While the improvement in the jobless rate will be welcomed by the country’s central bank, there is still plenty spare capacity in Australia’s labour market, meaning interest rate hikes are still some time away. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) believes full employment, the level where the labour market is tight enough to generate wage pressure, could be around 4% or lower. “The job market continues to tighten,” said CommSec chief economist Craig James. “And as the process continues that may cause firms to offer higher wages to fill vacant positions,” James added, while noting that both unemployment and underemployment levels remained elevated. “The Reserve Bank’s goal of a 4.5% jobless rate is still some way off – and so is a lift in official interest rates. But the speed of the job market recovery means that wage and price growth needs to be watched carefully.” The RBA has repeatedly said it would not raise interest rates from the current record low of 0.1% until it meets its inflation and employment goals. (Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Sam Holmes) Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.