Labour Force, Australia, Detailed

Latest release

Detailed monthly and quarterly Labour Force Survey data, including hours, regions, families, job search, job duration, casual, industry and occupation

Reference period
January 2024
Released
22/02/2024
  • Next Release 28/03/2024
    Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, February 2024
  • Next Release 24/04/2024
    Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, March 2024
  • Next Release 2/05/2024
    Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, March 2024
  • View all releases

About this release

Data from the monthly Labour Force Survey are released in two stages:

  1. Labour Force, Australia - which contains headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked
  2. Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - which contains detailed data not included in the first release

This second release of Labour Force Survey data includes the latest detailed monthly and quarterly data. Some information, including industry, occupation, sector, job duration, and retrenchment, is only available for February, May, August and November.

As a result, in the 'non-quarter' months, the quarterly spreadsheets and datacubes have a different reference period. For example, the May issue contains May monthly and May quarterly data, while the July issue will contain July monthly and May quarterly data.

For more information on the data contained in the first and second releases, see the Survey output section of the Labour Force Survey Methodology page.

Articles

The ABS has included Improvements to Labour Force estimation method to provide further information on the upcoming improvements to the Labour Force estimation method, which will be implemented in the February 2024 release of Labour Force, Australia on 21 March 2024. The article also includes information on the expected extent of revisions from this changes.

The updated detailed data with the improved method will be released in the February 2024 release of Labour Force, Australia, Detailed on 28 March 2024.

Using regional labour force data

Annual averages are important for understanding the current state of the labour market, and providing medium and long-term signals.

However, unusual, sudden and/or extreme changes in the labour market (e.g. changes to regular and seasonal patterns in employment, working hours, job search or availability as a result of COVID-19) can be difficult to account for in the short-term using a 12 month moving average. The application of an annual average to the original regional estimates in Table 16b is unlikely to accurately or quickly detect turning points in the time series during periods of significant change, which should be considered before drawing any conclusions from these estimates.

For advice on reporting data from our regional labour force products (Pivot tables RM1, RM3 and Tables 16, 16B, 16C) see Advice on reporting regional labour force data.

Update on enhanced regional labour market data

As part of ongoing improvements to the estimation method for Labour Force statistics, the ABS is also developing improved monthly regional labour force estimates.

An information paper was released on 30 October 2023, containing new SA4 level estimates, alongside a research paper, A Rao-Yu model for small area estimation of labour force statistics, with additional details on the time series model used to produce these estimates.

The first monthly release of the new modelled SA4 estimates will be in early May 2024, one week after the release of March 2024 issue of Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, with March 2024 being the latest month of data available.

Upcoming improvements to the Labour Force estimation method in early 2024

As part of ongoing improvements to the estimation method for Labour Force statistics, the ABS will make some minor changes in how it accounts for some relatively small population groups within the sample.

There are various small groups, which together account for less than 2 per cent of the overall sample, who are more difficult to survey each month, contribute a higher degree of underlying sampling variability, and for whom there is more reliable auxiliary data sources (e.g. regular administrative data). This includes some people who don’t live in private dwellings and some people who live in remote and very remote parts of Australia.

As noted in recent Labour Force releases, ABS research and analysis has shown that estimation models that draw on auxiliary data for these groups produce a better quality contribution for them to aggregate Labour Force statistics.

The ABS will introduce the new method with the February 2024 release (and quarterly population rebenchmarking revisions) on 21 March 2024. Further information on this estimation improvements can be found in Improvements to Labour Force estimation method.

Labour force status

Monthly (January)

Data files

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Industry, Occupation and Sector

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Hours worked

Monthly (January)

Data files

Unemployment

Monthly (January)

Data files

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Underemployment and underutilisation

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Status in employment

Monthly (January)

Data files

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Labour market regions (SA4)

Monthly (January)

Data files

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Relationship in household

Monthly (January)

Data files

Current and expected job duration

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Retrenchment

Quarterly (November)

Data files

Not in the labour force

Monthly (January)

Data files

All data downloads

All monthly time series spreadsheets

All monthly pivot tables

All quarterly time series spreadsheets

All quarterly pivot tables

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue numbers:

Detailed Labour Force data were also previously published in:

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