JANUARY KEY FIGURES

		Dec 2018	Jan 2019	Dec 18 to Jan 19	Jan 18 to Jan 19
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	12,722.8	12,747.7	24.9	2.4%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	678.2	680.1	1.8	-5.8%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.1	5.1	0.0 pts	-0.4 pts
	Underemployment rate (%)	8.3	8.3	0.0 pts	-0.3 pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.7	65.7	0.0 pts	0.1 pts
	Monthly hours worked in all jobs ('000 000)	1,761.6	1,763.2	1.6	1.6%
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	12,712.7	12,751.8	39.1	2.2%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	666.9	673.5	6.6	-6.9%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.0	5.0	0.0 pts	-0.5 pts
	Underemployment rate (%)	8.3	8.1	-0.2 pts	-0.6 pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.7	0.1 pts	0.0 pts
	Monthly hours worked in all jobs ('000 000)	1,759.8	1,766.4	6.6	3.2%

JANUARY KEY POINTS

TREND ESTIMATES

• Employed persons increased 24,900 to 12,747,700. Full-time employed persons increased 16,800 to 8,737,400 and part-time employed persons increased 8,100 to 4,010,300.
• Unemployed persons increased 1,800 to 680,100.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.1%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 65.7%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 1.6 million hours to 1763.2 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES

• Employed persons increased 39,100 to 12,751,800. Full-time employed persons increased 65,400 to 8,743,100 and part-time employed persons decreased 26,300 to 4,008,700.
• Unemployed persons increased 6,600 to 673,500.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.0%.
• Participation rate increased 0.1 pts to 65.7%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 6.6 million hours to 1766.4 million hours.

LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION

• The monthly trend underemployment rate remained steady at 8.3%. The monthly underutilisation rate remained steady at 13.3%.
• The monthly seasonally adjusted underemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 8.1%. The monthly underutilisation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 13.2%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

Issue	Release Date
February 2019	21 March 2019
March 2019	18 April 2019
April 2019	16 May 2019
May 2019	13 June 2019
June 2019	18 July 2019
July 2019	15 August 2019

REVIEW OF DETAILED LABOUR FORCE DATA - QUARTERLY EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND SECTOR DATA

The ABS is currently reviewing the usage of Labour Force data contained within the detailed monthly and quarterly releases (6291.0.55.001 and 6291.0.55.003), with an initial focus on quarterly educational attainment data and quarterly public and private sector data. The ABS is keen to hear from users of educational attainment and sector data, at labourforce@abs.gov.au, including how you use the data and the extent to which they meet your requirements.


NEW LABOUR FORCE SURVEY SAMPLE

As previously highlighted, the ABS is currently phasing in a new sample design. This began with the incoming rotation group in July 2018 and will continue through to February 2019. An information paper titled Information Paper: Labour Force Survey Sample Design, Jul 2018 (cat. no. 6269.0) was released on 30 July 2018 with detailed information on the new sample. As with each regular sample design, the impacts on the data are expected to be minimal and the ABS will monitor the quality of the estimates over the period the sample is phased in.


ROUNDING

Estimates of changes in the commentary have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movement obtained from the rounded estimates. Graphs also depict unrounded estimates.

SAMPLING ERROR

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Published estimates and movements are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of sampling variability. The interval bounded by two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates. There is a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

	Monthly change		95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	39 100		-21 900	to	100 100
Total Unemployment	6 600		-30 800	to	44 000
Unemployment rate	0.0 pts		-0.2 pts	to	0.2 pts
Participation rate	0.1 pts		-0.3 pts	to	0.5 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, email client.services@abs.gov.au or contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.