Labour Account Australia

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The Australian Labour Account provides quarterly and annual time series data, consisting of four quadrants: Jobs, Persons, Hours and Payments

Reference period
June 2020
Released
9/09/2020

Key statistics

​​​​​In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • The total number of jobs decreased by 1,028,400 (or 7.0%).
  • Secondary jobs fell by 193,400 (or 19.6%), while the number of multiple job holders decreased by 22.7%.
  • The total number of hours actually worked decreased by 527.3 million hours (or 9.8%).
  • The total number of employed persons decreased by 5.4% to 12.8 million. 
 Seasonally Adjusted
Mar qtr 2020 to Jun qtr 2020
% change

Jun qtr 2019 to Jun qtr 2020
% change

Filled Jobs

-6.4

-5.2

Main Job

-5.5

-4.6

Secondary Job

-19.6

-13.3

Job Vacancies

-42.1

-43.3

Hours Actually Worked

-9.8

-9.4

Average Hours Actually Worked Per Job

-3.6

-4.4

Average Income Per Employed Person

5.1

6.9

Data impacts and changes

Managing the impact of COVID-19

Revisions

Jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • Filled jobs decreased by 6.4%, following a 0.1% fall in the March quarter 2020. Filled jobs fell 5.2% through the year.
  • The number of main jobs fell by 739,000 (or 5.5%).
  • The number of multiple job holders decreased by 22.7%.
  • The proportion of vacant jobs (PVJ) decreased to 1.0%, following a recent high of 1.6% in the December quarter 2019.
  • The number of public sector jobs decreased by 1.9%, while the number of private sector jobs decreased by 7.1%.

Total Jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • The total number of jobs decreased by 1,028,400 (or 7.0%), made up of a decrease of 96,000 job vacancies and a decrease of 932,400 filled jobs.

Filled jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • The number of filled jobs decreased by 932,400 to 13.6 million. 


 

Labour Account filled jobs, proportion by industry June quarter 2020

 Labour Account Filled Jobs
June qtr 2020
('000)
Proportion of Total All Industries
June qtr 2020
(%)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing (A)

467.6

3.4

Mining (B)

183.9

1.4

Manufacturing (C)

873.4

6.4

Electricity, gas, water and waste services (D)

119.0

0.9

Construction (E)

1,132.8

8.4

Wholesale trade (F)

563.0

4.2

Retail trade (G)

1,301.8

9.6

Accommodation and food services (H)

934.9

6.9

Transport, postal and warehousing (I)

632.3

4.7

Information media and telecommunications (J)

162.1

1.2

Financial and insurance services (K)

482.2

3.6

Rental, hiring and real estate services (L)

293.2

2.2

Professional, scientific and technical services (M)

1,229.5

9.1

Administrative and support services (N)

801.3

5.9

Public administration and safety (O)

771.9

5.7

Education and training (P)

1,046.8

7.7

Health care and social assistance (Q)

1,902.4

14.0

Arts and recreation services (R)

170.5

1.3

Other services (S)

489.8

3.6

Total All Industries

13,558.4

100.0

 

Labour Account filled jobs, percentage change by industry, June quarter 2020

  Seasonally Adjusted
Mar qtr 2020 to Jun qtr 2020
% change
Jun qtr 2019 to Jun qtr 2020
% change
Agriculture, forestry and fishing (A)

-0.5

-0.2

Mining (B)

-4.0

-3.3

Manufacturing (C)

-6.1

-2.4

Electricity, gas water and waste services (D)

-2.9

-2.2

Construction (E)

-6.2

-0.9

Wholesale trade (F)

-7.1

-2.5

Retail trade (G)

-7.5

-9.0

Accommodation and food services (H)

-15.3

-16.8

Transport, postal and warehousing (I)

-8.8

-8.2

Information media and telecommunications (J)

-5.6

-10.3

Financial and insurance services (K)

1.9

7.2

Rental, hiring and real estate services (L)

-0.3

-0.3

Professional, scientific and technical services (M)

-4.2

0.1

Administrative and support services (N)

-12.0

-12.5

Public administration and safety (O)

-2.0

0.0

Education and training (P)

-6.8

-7.7

Health care and social assistance (Q)

-2.8

2.3

Arts and recreation services (R)

-19.1

-31.0

Other services (S)

-10.6

-15.7

Total All Industries

-6.4

-5.2

 

Secondary jobs

Secondary jobs are where a person is working more than one job at the same time, and may consist of one or more additional jobs. These jobs can be held by persons who have their main job in the same or a different industry. 

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • Secondary jobs fell by 193,400 (or 19.6%). 
  • The proportion of secondary jobs to filled jobs was 5.8% compared to 6.8% in the previous quarter.

The three industries with the highest number of secondary jobs were Administrative and support services, Health care and social assistance and Education and training.
 

Statistical discrepancy - Filled jobs

Persons

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • The total number of employed persons decreased by 5.4% to 12.8 million. 
  • There were 991,500 unemployed persons, an increase of 280,200 persons from March quarter 2020.
  • There were 1,698,200 underemployed persons, an increase of 534,000 persons from March quarter 2020.

The Australian Labour Account produces the number of people employed from an industry perspective. As a result, the sum of employed persons in the Australian Labour Account across industry divisions does not equal the total number of people employed in the whole economy, given some people are employed in multiple industries.

The three industries with the highest number of employed persons in the June quarter 2020 were Health care and social assistance, Retail trade and Professional, scientific and technical services.

Hours

Hours actually worked is the time spent in a job for the performance of activities that contribute to the production of goods and services during a specified short or long reference period.

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • The total number of hours actually worked decreased by 527.3 million hours (or 9.8%) to 4.9 billion hours.
  • The total number of hours paid decreased 10.1% to 5.3 billion hours.

The three industries with the highest number of hours actually worked in the June quarter 2020 were Health care and social assistance, Professional, scientific and technical services and Construction.

Average hours worked per job is the hours actually worked divided by all filled jobs.

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • Average hours worked per job decreased by 3.6% to 359 hours. 

Payments

The Labour Account Payments quadrant presents the costs incurred by enterprises in employing labour, and the incomes received by people from its provision. Total income consists of compensation of employees and labour income from self-employment. The addition of other related costs to employers to total income will derive total labour costs.

In seasonally adjusted terms for the June quarter 2020:

  • Total labour income decreased by $1,657 million (or 0.6%) to $258,913 million. 
  • The average labour income per employed person increased by 5.1% to $20,259.
  • Total compensation of employees decreased by 2.3% to $233,646 million
  • Labour income from self-employment increased by 17.9% to $25,267 million.


The three industries with the highest total labour income in the June quarter 2020 were Health care and social assistance, Professional, scientific and technical services and Construction.

Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the Labour Account

Strengths of the Labour Account in measuring the labour market impacts of COVID-19

Seasonal adjustment and trend estimation

Hours

Jobs

Persons

Payments

Assessing data limitations during COVID-19

For further information on the Labour Account, email labour.statistics@abs.gov.au.

Data downloads

Table 1. Total all industries - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 2. Agriculture, forestry and fishing (A) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 3. Mining (B) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 4. Manufacturing (C) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 5. Electricity, gas, water and waste services (D) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 6. Construction (E) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 7. Wholesale trade (F) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 8. Retail trade (G) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 9. Accommodation and food services (H) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 10. Transport, postal and warehousing (I) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 11. Information media and telecommunications (J) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 12. Financial and insurance services (K) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 13. Rental, hiring and real estate services (L) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 14. Professional, scientific and technical services (M) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 15. Administrative and support services (N) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 16. Public administration and safety (O) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 17. Education and training (P) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 18. Health care and social assistance (Q) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 19. Arts and recreation services (R) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 20. Other services (S) - trend, seasonally adjusted and original

Table 21. Unbalanced: total all industries - original

Table 22. Quarterly revisions

All data cubes

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6150.0.55.003.

History of changes

  • 4/11/2020 - Annual data has been added to this release. The annual data can be accessed as ABS.Stat datasets in the Data downloads section. These files contain data from 1994-95 through to 2019-20.
  • 4/11/2020 - The following changes have been made to the June quarter 2020 release:
    • Improvements made to the layout for ease of use.
    • Data corrected in three graphs - Average quarterly hours worked per job, Total jobs by industry, and Secondary jobs by industry.
    • Amendments made to correct unit labels on two graphs - Average hours actually worked per job by industry and Total labour income by industry.
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