AUGUST KEY FIGURES

		Jul 2018	Aug 2018	Jul 18 to Aug 18		Aug 17 to Aug 18
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	12 591.8	12 620.7	29.0		2.5	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	714.6	711.9	-2.7		-1.3	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.4	5.3	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.6	0.0	pts	0.4	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	12 587.3	12 631.3	44.0		2.5	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	703.0	708.8	5.8		-2.4	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.3	5.3	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.7	0.2	pts	0.4	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

AUGUST KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 29,000 to 12,620,700.
• Unemployment decreased 2,700 to 711,900.
• Unemployment rate decreased to 5.3%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 65.6%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 2.5 million hours (0.1%) to 1,751.4 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 44,000 to 12,631,300. Full-time employment increased 33,700 to 8,630,700 and part-time employment increased 10,200 to 4,000,600.
• Unemployment increased 5,800 to 708,800. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 7,500 to 494,800 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 13,200 to 214,000.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.3%.
• Participation rate increased by 0.2 pts to 65.7%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 0.6 million hours (0.03%) to 1,750.9 million hours.

LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION (QUARTERLY CHANGE)

• Trend estimates: the labour force underemployment rate remained steady at 8.3%. The underutilisation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 13.6%.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: the labour force underemployment rate decreased by 0.3 pts to 8.1%. The underutilisation rate decreased 0.4 pts to 13.4%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
September 2018	18 October 2018
October 2018	15 November 2018
November 2018	20 December 2018
December 2018	24 January 2019
January 2019	21 February 2019
February 2019	21 March 2019

UPDATE ON MONTHLY UNDEREMPLOYMENT ESTIMATES

As previously advised, the ABS intends to release monthly trend and seasonally adjusted underemployment and underutilisation measures in the September 2018 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0), on 18 October 2018. New table shells have been provided in this release to assist users in preparing for the release of monthly underemployment and underutilisation next month. For further details information on underemployment and underutilisation measures, please refer to Chapter "Underutilised Labour" of Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 6102.0.55.001).


CESSATION OF A PDF PRODUCT

The ABS intends to cease publishing a PDF as part of the release of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0). The October 2018 issue, released in November 2018, is expected to be the final release with a PDF. The ABS has been considering the future of this PDF for a number of years, which is now used by less than 1% of Labour Force data users. The move away from bulletin-style products is a trend that has been consistently observed internationally, with many national statistical organisations moving to more dynamic products for their labour market statistics. It is for this reason that most other labour statistics releases have already moved away from producing PDF as part of their release.

All of the information that is contained in the PDF will continue to be available elsewhere in this release. Should you have any concerns regarding this transition, please contact us at labourforce@abs.gov.au.


NEW LABOUR FORCE SURVEY SAMPLE

As previously highlighted, the ABS is currently phasing in a new sample design. This began with the incoming rotation group in July 2018 and will continue through to February 2019. An information paper titled Information Paper: Labour Force Survey Sample Design, Jul 2018 (cat. no. 6269.0) was released on 30 July 2018 with detailed information on the new sample. As with each regular sample design, the impacts on the data are expected to be minimal and the ABS will monitor the quality of the estimates over the period the sample is phased in.


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 JULY 2018 AND AUGUST 2018
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	44 000	-16 200	to	104 200
Total Unemployment	5 800	-30 800	to	42 400
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, email <client.services@abs.gov.au> or contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.