APRIL KEY FIGURES

		Mar 2013	Apr 2013	Mar 13 to Apr 13		Apr 12 to Apr 13
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 629.5	11 646.0	16.5		1.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	676.6	682.9	6.3		9.9	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.5	0.0	pts	0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.3	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 613.1	11 663.2	50.1		1.4	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	688.0	685.3	-2.7		14.0	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.6	5.5	0.0	pts	0.6	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.3	0.2	pts	0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

APRIL KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 11,646,000.
• Unemployment increased to 682,900.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.5%.
• Participation rate at 65.3%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,638.8 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 50,100 (0.4%) to 11,663,200. Full-time employment increased 34,500 to 8,159,700 and part-time employment increased 15,600 to 3,503,500.
• Unemployment decreased 2,700 (0.4%) to 685,300. The number of persons looking for full-time work remained steady at 502,800 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased 2,700 to 182,500.
• The unemployment rate at 5.5%.
• The participation rate increased 0.2 pts to 65.3% after a revised March estimate.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 10.9 million hours to 1,643.3 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
May 2013	13 June 2013
June 2013	11 July 2013
July 2013	8 August 2013
August 2013	12 September 2013
September 2013	10 October 2013
October 2013	7 November 2013

NOTES RELATING TO APRIL ISSUE

See page 4 for details on the following:

• Rebenchmarking of Labour Force estimates
• New Labour Force Survey sample design commences in May

ELECTRONIC COLLECTION OF DATA

The transition to online collection in the Labour Force Survey will roll-out from May 2013. See the feature article on page 6 of this issue for more information.


ROUNDING

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


SAMPLING ERROR

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Published estimates and the movements derived from them are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of sampling variability (see pages 38 and 39). 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.

MOVEMENTS IN SEASONALLY ADJUSTED SERIES BETWEEN MARCH 2013 AND APRIL 2013
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	50 100	-5 100	to	105 300
Total Unemployment	-2 700	-36 900	to	31 500
Unemployment rate	0.0 pts	-0.2 pts	to	0.2 pts
Participation rate	0.2 pts	-0.2 pts	to	0.6 pts

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 Labour Force on Canberra (02) 6252 6525, email labourforce@abs.gov.au\>.