MEDIA RELEASE
14 January 2016	Embargoed: 11.30 am (Canberra time)	4/2016

The Australian of Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that the strong trend growth in employment has continued.

"The trend shows that around 312,000 more people were employed in December 2015 than in December 2014. Full-time employment growth was stronger than part-time over the year, increasing by 186,600 people," said Bruce Hockman, General Manager of ABS' Macroeconomic Statistics Division.

The increase in employment has contributed to the trend employment to population ratio rising over the year from 60.6 per cent to 61.4 per cent, while the unemployment rate has decreased over the year from 6.2 per cent to 5.8 per cent.

Over the past month, trend employment increased by 27,500 persons to 11,893,800 persons, which translates into a monthly growth rate of 0.23 per cent. This growth rate was above the monthly average over the past 20 years (0.15 per cent), and continues the trend in relatively strong employment growth that has been seen since December 2014.

The trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December 2015 was 5.8 per cent (down 0.1 percentage points, based on unrounded estimates) and the labour force participation rate was 65.1 per cent (down 0.1 percentage points, based on unrounded estimates).

The seasonally adjusted number of persons employed was virtually unchanged in December 2015, while the number of persons unemployed decreased by 10,900.

The ABS seasonally adjusted monthly hours worked in all jobs series was relatively unchanged at 1,645.2 million hours, the ABS reported.

More details are in the December 2015 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0), as well as the upcoming December 2015 issue of Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) due for release on January 21.

Media note:

• When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
• Media requests and interviews - contact the ABS Communications Section on 1300 175 070.
• The ABS produces trend estimates to provide a more reliable indicator of the underlying behaviour of the Labour Force series. Trend estimates were introduced into the Labour Force series in the mid 1980's and are available back to February 1978. Trend estimates are considered the best indicators of the underlying behaviour in the labour market. See paragraphs 28 to 37 of the Explanatory Notes in Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0).