JANUARY KEY FIGURES

		Dec 2014	Jan 2015	Dec 14 to Jan 15		Jan 14 to Jan 15
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 650.8	11 666.0	15.2		1.4	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	778.7	782.3	3.6		8.8	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	6.3	6.3	0.0	pts	0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.7	64.7	0.0	pts	0.1	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 680.9	11 668.7	-12.2		1.6	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	760.7	795.2	34.5		8.8	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	6.1	6.4	0.3	pts	0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.8	64.8	0.0	pts	0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

JANUARY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 11,666,000.
• Unemployment increased to 782,300.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 6.3% from a revised December 2014 estimate.
• Participation rate remained steady at 64.7%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 0.7 million hours to 1,604.4 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment decreased 12,200 to 11,668,700. Full-time employment decreased 28,100 to 8,078,000 and part-time employment increased 15,900 to 3,590,700.
• Unemployment increased 34,500 to 795,200. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work increased 200 to 551,800 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 34,300 to 243,400.
• Unemployment rate increased 0.3 pts to 6.4%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 64.8%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 8.2 million hours (0.5%) to 1 ,607.6 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
February 2015	12 March 2015
March 2015	9 April 2015
April 2015	7 May 2015
May 2015	11 June 2015
June 2015	9 July 2015
July 2015	6 August 2015

WHAT'S NEW IN THE LABOUR FORCE

For information regarding quarterly rebenchmarking, refer to 'What's new in the Labour Force' on page 6.


ROUNDING

Estimates of change 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, 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 Standard Errors section). 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 DECEMBER 2014 AND JANUARY 2015
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	-12 200	-70 200	to	45 800
Total Unemployment	34 500	-5 900	to	74 900
Unemployment rate	0.3 pts	-0.1 pts	to	0.7 pts
Participation rate	0.0 pts	-0.4 pts	to	0.4 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\>. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.