APRIL KEY FIGURES

		Mar 2018	Apr 2018	Mar 18 to Apr 18		Apr 17 to Apr 18
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	12 491.4	12 505.2	13.8		2.9	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	731.9	733.3	1.4		-0.7	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.5	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.7	0.0	pts	0.7	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	12 478.4	12 501.0	22.6		2.7	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	730.4	741.0	10.6		1.3	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.6	0.1	pts	-0.1	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.5	65.6	0.1	pts	0.6	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

APRIL KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 13,800 to 12,505,200.
• Unemployment increased 1,400 to 733,300.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.5%.
• Participation rate increased by less than 0.1 pts to 65.7%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 4.7 million hours (0.27%) to 1,749.4 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 22,600 to 12,501,000. Full-time employment increased 32,700 to 8,543,400 and part-time employment decreased 10,000 to 3,957,700.
• Unemployment increased 10,600 to 741,000. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 17,100 to 506,100 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 27,600 to 234,900.
• Unemployment rate increased by 0.1 pts to 5.6%.
• Participation rate increased by 0.1 pts to 65.6%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 19.4 million hours (1.11%) to 1,764.0 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
May 2018	14 June 2018
June 2018	19 July 2018
July 2018	16 August 2018
August 2018	13 September 2018
September 2018	18 October 2018
October 2018	15 November 2018

UPDATE ON MONTHLY UNDEREMPLOYMENT ESTIMATES

As previously advised, the implementation of monthly trend and seasonally adjusted underemployment and underutilisation measures has been delayed. The ABS intends to introduce these series in the September issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) on 18 October 2018. Further information on the new monthly series, including changes that will be made to the suite of time series spreadsheets, will be included ahead of the release of the new series. We thank users for their patience and understanding with this delay.


ROUNDING

Estimates of changes shown on the front cover and used 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. 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 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.

MOVEMENTS IN SEASONALLY ADJUSTED SERIES BETWEEN MARCH 2018 AND APRIL 2018
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	22 600	-37 400	to	82 600
Total Unemployment	10 600	-28 200	to	49 400
Unemployment rate	0.1 pts	-0.3 pts	to	0.5 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.