The sky, stubbornly, refuses to fall in. Today’s employment numbers continue to show a growing economy, and its not all in the mining states by any stretch.

Full-time employment is up, nearly 60,000, offset by a fall in part-time employment, down just under 36,000. But that’s fine — we want the economy swapping out part-time work for full-time work. Aggregate hours worked went up just under half a percent.

Overall, unemployment fell very slightly, to stay at 4.9%.

They’re still numbers most western countries would give anything to achieve.

Where was the growth in the supposed “patchwork economy”? Yes, in the boom state in the west, unemployment fell 0.1 point to 4.2%. But Victoria had a big fall in unemployment, down a full half a percent to 4.6. Then again its May figure had seen a big rise, too, so that may be more statistical volatility than anything. Victoria’s trend unemployment remained steady at 4.7% — either way, the state is still hiring.

So, too, is South Australia — unemployment is down 0.3 of a point to 5.1%. And that was on the back of a lift in its participation rate. Unemployment in Queensland lifted 0.1 of a point to 5.3%. Even Tasmania’s big rise in unemployment in May was reversed in June, back to 5.5%.

The only problem state is NSW, which rose 0.3 of a point to 5.2%. Worse, that was on the back of a fall in the participation rate.

This is by no means the robust growth of an economy in boom conditions, but that’s not exactly what we want anyway. It’s steady growth, and it is across both resource and non-resource states. Poor consumer and business sentiment looks at odds with these figures, except in NSW where, strangely, unemployment has gone up a tick since the election of Barry O’Farrell’s conservative government was supposed to engender some much-needed confidence after years of Labor dereliction.

There are still plenty of “downside risks” to the economy from overseas, but in recent months the economy has been travelling at a moderate speed with which the Reserve Bank will be quite happy.