AUGUST KEY FIGURES

		Jul 2009	Aug 2009	Jul 09 to Aug 09		Aug 08 to Aug 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 772.2	10 770.2	-2.0		-0.2	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	666.3	668.7	2.5		39.6	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.8	5.8	0.0	pts	1.6	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.2	-0.1	pts	-0.2	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 790.7	10 763.6	-27.1		-0.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	665.7	663.6	-2.1		44.2	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.8	5.8	0.0	pts	1.7	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.3	65.1	-0.3	pts	-0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

AUGUST KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment decreased to 10,770,200
• Unemployment increased to 668,700
• Unemployment rate remained at 5.8%
• Participation rate remained at 65.2%
• Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased to 1,510.5 million hours

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment decreased by 27,100 to 10,763,600. Full-time employment decreased by 30,800 to 7,553,800 and part-time employment increased by 3,800 to 3,209,800.
• Unemployment decreased by 2,100 to 663,600. The number of persons looking for full-time work decreased by 8,800 to 488,100 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased by 6,600 to 175,500.
• Unemployment rate at 5.8%. The male unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 6.0%, and the female unemployment rate increased 0.2 pts to 5.6%.
• Participation rate decreased 0.3 pts to 65.1%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 4.0 million hours to 1,507.7 million hours.

LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION (QUARTERLY CHANGE)

• Trend estimates: Labour force underutilisation rate increased to 13.9%.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: Labour force underutilisation rate increased 0.1 pt to 13.6%. The male labour force underutilisation rate decreased 0.6 pts to 11.9%, and the female labour force underutilisation rate increased 1.0 pt to 15.5%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
September 2009	8 October 2009
October 2009	12 November 2009
November 2009	10 December 2009
December 2009	14 January 2010
January 2010	11 February 2010
February 2010	11 March 2010

CHANGES THIS MONTH

This issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) includes publication tables on aggregate monthly hours worked in Table 18, and quarterly labour force underutilisation rates in Tables 19 and 20. Detailed data for these new key measures are available on the website in time series spreadsheets. Aggregate monthly hours worked, for males, females and persons, are released in Table 19. Labour force underutilisation rates, classified by sex, age and state, are included in Tables 20 and 21.

The May 2009 issue of this publication included an article and detailed publication tables on labour underutilisation.

An article in the July 2009 issue provided information on aggregate monthly hours worked. The series for aggregate monthly hours worked, released this month, include minor revisions when compared to estimates contained in the article. The average monthly revision, at the total level, is a reduction of 0.05%.

For more information on the methodology used to produce the aggregate monthly hours worked estimates see Information Paper: Expansion of Hours Worked Estimates from the Labour Force Survey (cat. no. 6290.0.55.001).


SAMPLE RE-INSTATEMENT

On 13 May 2009, the Australian Statistician announced the full re-instatement of the Labour Force Survey sample. The re-instatement will occur over four reference months, from September to December 2009. The December 2009 estimates, released in January 2010, will be the first under the fully re-instated sample. The reversal of the 24% reduction in sample size is expected to decrease standard errors by approximately 15%.


ROUNDING

Estimates of monthly change and graphs shown on the front cover have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from rounded estimates.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070, email client.services@abs.gov.au or Steve Wood on Canberra (02) 6252 6525, email labourforce@abs.gov.au.