MARCH KEY FIGURES

		Feb 2009	Mar 2009	Feb 09 to Mar 09		Mar 08 to Mar 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 797.2	10 792.3	-5.0		0.4	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	588.1	612.8	24.7		33.3	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.2	5.4	0.2	pts	1.3	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.4	65.5	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 806.5	10 771.8	-34.7		0.2	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	598.0	650.9	52.9		44.3	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.2	5.7	0.5	pts	1.7	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.5	65.5	0.0	pts	0.1	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

MARCH KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• EMPLOYMENT decreased to 10,792,300
• UNEMPLOYMENT increased to 612,800
• UNEMPLOYMENT RATE increased to 5.4%
• PARTICIPATION RATE increased to 65.5%

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

EMPLOYMENT

• decreased by 34,700 to 10,771,800. Full-time employment decreased by 38,900 to 7,621,300 and part-time employment increased by 4,200 to 3,150,500.

UNEMPLOYMENT

• increased by 52,900 to 650,900. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased by 28,500 to 460,400 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased by 24,300 to 190,500.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

• increased by 0.5 percentage points to 5.7%. The male unemployment rate increased by 0.5 percentage points to 5.7%, and the female unemployment rate increased by 0.4 percentage points to 5.7%.

PARTICIPATION RATE

• remained steady at 65.5%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
April 2009	7 May 2009
May 2009	11 June 2009
June 2009	9 July 2009
July 2009	6 August 2009
August 2009	10 September 2009
September 2009	8 October 2009

LABOUR FORCE SURVEY REGIONS

Labour Force Survey (LFS) Statistical Region boundaries are revised every five years at each LFS sample redesign, following the availability of data from the Census of Population and Housing.

LFS regional estimates are produced based on the 2006 LFS Statistical Regions. A Feature Article on LFS regions will be published in the July 2009 issue of Australian Labour Market Statistics (cat. no. 6105.0). This article will include:

• Labour Force Region Maps; and
• Statistical Local Areas to Labour Force Regions Concordance.

ROUNDING

Estimates of monthly change shown on the front cover 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 ERRORS

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Because the entire population is not enumerated, the published estimates and the movements derived from them are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of this variability and appear on pages 30 and 31.

The 95% confidence intervals below provide another way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates from sample surveys. The interval bounded by the two limits is the 95% confidence interval, which represents a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

Movements in seasonally adjusted series between February and March 2009
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	-34 700	-95 300	to	25 900
Total Unemployment	52 900	14 700	to	91 100
Unemployment rate	0.5 pts	0.1 pts	to	0.9 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 or Mary Piechowski on Canberra (02) 6252 6525.