DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Nov 2010	Dec 2010	Nov 10 to Dec 10		Dec 09 to Dec 10
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 392.8	11 418.1	25.3		3.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	621.2	618.8	-2.5		-4.1	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.2	5.1	0.0	pts	-0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.9	66.0	0.1	pts	0.6	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 415.1	11 417.4	2.3		3.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	624.1	598.7	-25.4		-8.1	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.2	5.0	-0.2	pts	-0.6	pts
	Participation rate (%)	66.0	65.8	-0.2	pts	0.4	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 11,418,100
• Unemployment decreased to 618,800
• Unemployment rate decreased to 5.1%
• Participation rate increased to 66.0%
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,602.5 million hours

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 2,300 to 11,417,400. Full-time employment increased 1,700 to 8,034,200 and part-time employment increased 600 to 3,383,200.
• Unemployment decreased 25,400 (-4.1%) to 598,700. The number of persons looking for full-time work decreased 11,500 to 426,300 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased 13,900 to 172,400.
• Unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 5.0%. The male unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 4.7% and the female unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 5.3%.
• Participation rate decreased 0.2 pts to 65.8%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 3.4 million hours to 1,599.0 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
January 2011	10 February 2011
February 2011	10 March 2011
March 2011	7 April 2011
April 2011	12 May 2011
May 2011	9 June 2011
June 2011	7 July 2011

FORTHCOMING CHANGES

The ABS will be introducing new measures of aggregate monthly hours worked by state and territory into Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) from the January 2011 issue. These measures will be included in publication Table 19, and the quarterly labour force underutilisation rates will be included in Tables 20 and 21.

Detailed data for these new measures will be available on the website in a time series spreadsheet. Aggregate monthly hours worked by state and territory will be released in Table 20. The quarter measure of aggregate monthly hours worked by industry sector will be moved to Table 21 and labour force underutilisation rates, classified by age and state, will be included in Tables 22 and 23.

For further information refer to the article titled Aggregate monthly hours worked by state and territory in the December 2010 issue of this publication.


SAMPLING ERROR

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Therefore, published estimates and the movements derived from them are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of this variability, see pages 33 and 34. The interval bounded by two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates. This represents a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

Movements in seasonally adjusted series between November 2010 and December 2010
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	2 300	-52 700	to	57 300
Total Unemployment	-25 400	-55 600	to	4 800
Unemployment rate	-0.2 pts	-0.4 pts	to	0.0 pts
Participation rate	-0.2 pts	-0.6 pts	to	0.2 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.