SYDNEY (Reuters) Australian employment blew away forecasts by surging 54,600 in November as firms took on many more full-time workers, a resounding counterpoint to recent soft data and an omen that interest rates may not stay on hold for too long.

The Australian dollar leaped half a cent as the jump in jobs far surpassed expectations of a 19,000 rise while full-time hires climbed 55,100.

The jobless rate dropped to 5.2 percent, from 5.4 percent, even though the participation rate hit a record high of 66.1 percent as more people went looking for work.

Such unalloyed strength supported the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) confidence in the economic outlook and its rationale for raising interest rates to 4.75 percent last month as a pre-emptive strike against inflation.

“Another absolutely scorching result,” said James McIntyre, an economist at Commonwealth Bank. “Annual employment growth of 3.7 percent shows the economy is in very rude health.”

“I guess it also poses the question that if we keep seeing numbers like this, the RBA may find come February that instead of being ahead of the curve it has fallen behind.”

Top RBA officials had intimated they were comfortable with where rates were and there was little prospect of an imminent tightening. The market had gone much further and pushed out the timing of any further hike to the second half of 2011.

“Absolutely extraordinary numbers,” enthused Brian Redican, a senior economist at Macquarie. “That’s a lot more people working and earning, with more incomes and greater demand.”

Employment has sped past all expectations this year with a rise of 402,500, a breakneck pace for an economy with a potential labour force of just 12 million.

An equivalent increase in US payrolls this year would have been five million.