JULY KEY FIGURES

		Jun 2015	Jul 2015	Jun 15 to Jul 15		Jul 14 to Jul 15
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 779.5	11 797.3	17.8		2.1	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	769.3	772.3	3.0		2.5	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	6.1	6.1	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.9	64.9	0.0	pts	0.3	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 772.2	11 810.7	38.5		2.1	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	760.6	800.7	40.1		4.1	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	6.1	6.3	0.3	pts	0.1	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.8	65.1	0.3	pts	0.3	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

JULY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 11,797,300.
• Unemployment increased to 772,300.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 6.1%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 64.9%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 0.4 million hours to 1,634.0 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 38,500 to 11,810,700. Full-time employment increased 12,400 to 8,170,400 and part-time employment increased 26,100 to 3,640,300.
• Unemployment increased 40,100 to 800,700. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work increased 23,600 to 568,100 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 16,500 to 232,600.
• Unemployment rate increased 0.3 pts to 6.3% from a revised June 2015 estimate.
• Participation rate increased 0.3 pts to 65.1%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 3.4 million hours (0.2%) to 1,633.2 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
August 2015	10 September 2015
September 2015	15 October 2015
October 2015	12 November 2015
November 2015	10 December 2015
December 2015	14 January 2016
January 2016	11 February 2016

WHAT'S NEW IN THE LABOUR FORCE

Commencing with this publication, the July 2015 issue of the detailed monthly publication (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001), and the August 2015 issue of the detailed quarterly publication (cat. no. 6291.0.55.003), the ABS plans to publish Labour Force spreadsheets and data cubes in new formats. Details of the new format outputs are on page 6.

Annual benchmarking of monthly hours worked in all jobs has occurred with this issue. For details see page 7.

An update on progress with recommendations from the independent technical review into the Labour Force Survey is available on page 8. A brief article describing changes to the Status in Employment classification is also available on page 13.


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 JUNE 2015 AND JULY 2015
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	38 500	-19 500	to	96 500
Total Unemployment	40 100	1 500	to	78 700
Unemployment rate	0.3 pts	-0.1 pts	to	0.7 pts
Participation rate	0.3 pts	-0.1 pts	to	0.7 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.