FEBRUARY KEY FIGURES

		Jan 2018	Feb 2018	Jan 18 to Feb 18		Feb 17 to Feb 18
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	12 461.1	12 480.5	19.3		3.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	725.1	729.5	4.3		-1.4	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.5	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.7	0.1	pts	0.9	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	12 463.0	12 480.5	17.5		3.5	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	725.2	734.1	8.9		-1.9	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.6	0.1	pts	-0.3	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.7	0.0	pts	1.0	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

FEBRUARY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 19,300 to 12,480,500.
• Unemployment increased 4,300 to 729,500.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.5%.
• Participation rate increased by 0.1 pts to 65.7%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 1.4 million hours (0.1%) to 1,730.3 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 17,500 to 12,480,500. Full-time employment increased 64,900 to 8,533,600 and part-time employment decreased 47,400 to 3,946,900.
• Unemployment increased 8,900 to 734,100. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work increased 13,600 to 512,900 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased 4,700 to 221,200.
• Unemployment rate increased by 0.1 pts to 5.6%
• Participation rate increased by less than 0.1 pts to 65.7%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 21.2 million hours (1.2%) to 1,734.1 million hours.

LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION (QUARTERLY CHANGE)

• Trend estimates: the labour force underemployment rate decreased by 0.1 pts to 8.3%. The underutilisation rate decreased by 0.1 pts to 13.8%.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: the labour force underemployment rate increased by less than 0.1 pts to 8.4%. The underutilisation rate increased by 0.1 pts to 13.9%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
March 2018	19 April 2018
April 2018	17 May 2018
May 2018	14 June 2018
June 2018	19 July 2018
July 2018	16 August 2018
August 2018	13 September 2018

IMPROVEMENTS TO TREND ESTIMATES

As previously advised, the ABS will implement some minor improvements to trend estimation for the Labour Force time series as part of the 2018 Annual Seasonal Reanalysis, in the March 2018 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0). For further information on this please see the article "Improvements to Trend Estimation".


UPDATE ON MONTHLY UNDEREMPLOYMENT ESTIMATES

The ABS previously advised that monthly trend and seasonally adjusted underemployment and underutilisation measures would be released in the March 2018 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0). However, the implementation of the monthly underutilisation measures has been delayed. For further information on this, please refer to “What’s New In the Labour Force”.


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 JANUARY 2018 AND FEBRUARY 2018
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	17 500	-42 500	to	77 500
Total Unemployment	8 900	-30 700	to	48 500
Unemployment rate	0.1 pts	-0.3 pts	to	0.5 pts
Participation rate	0.0 pts	-0.4 pts	to	0.4 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.