Note 12/06/2009: Reissue of Labour Underutilisation graph.
The graph in the Labour Underutilisation article had an incorrect scale and has been amended in this reissue. The first table titled Labour Underutilisation (Aged 15 years & over) (a) incorrectly stated States and territories, this has been removed from this reissue.

Data associated with the graph and data released in Labour Force, Australia, May 2009 (cat. no. 6202.0) are not affected.

MAY KEY FIGURES

		Apr 2009	May 2009	Apr 09 to May 09		May 08 to May 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 789.3	10 788.1	-1.2		0.1	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	638.0	654.9	16.9		39.8	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.6	5.7	0.1	pts	1.6	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.5	65.5	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 794.8	10 793.1	-1.7		0.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	624.0	651.2	27.2		37.7	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.7	0.2	pts	1.5	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.4	65.5	0.1	pts	0.1	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

MAY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• EMPLOYMENT decreased to 10,788,100
• UNEMPLOYMENT increased to 654,900
• UNEMPLOYMENT RATE increased to 5.7%
• PARTICIPATION RATE remained steady at 65.5%

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

EMPLOYMENT

• decreased by 1,700 to 10,793,100. Full-time employment decreased by 26,200 to 7,643,100 and part-time employment increased by 24,500 to 3,150,000.

UNEMPLOYMENT

• increased by 27,200 to 651,200. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased by 30,000 to 482,600 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased by 2,800 to 168,600.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

• increased by 0.2 percentage points to 5.7%. The male unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points to 5.9%, and the female unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 5.4%.

PARTICIPATION RATE

• increased by 0.1 percentage point to 65.5%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
June 2009	9 July 2009
July 2009	6 August 2009
August 2009	10 September 2009
September 2009	8 October 2009
October 2009	12 November 2009
November 2009	10 December 2009

REVISIONS

The estimates for Inner Western Sydney Dissemination Region and Outer South Western Sydney Dissemination Region have been revised for the period from November 2007 to April 2009 due to a coding error. Correction of this error has resulted in very minor revisions over the same period to published estimates from February 2009 for New South Wales and Australia in Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) and related releases. These revisions have had no effect on the published unemployment rates.


SAMPLE RE-INSTATEMENT

On 13 May 2009, the Australian Statistician announced the full re-instatement of the Labour Force Survey sample. The re-instatement will occur over four reference months, from September to December 2009. The December 2009 estimates, released in January 2010, will be the first under the fully re-instated sample. The reversal of the 24% reduction in sample size is expected to decrease standard errors by approximately 15%.


LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION

This issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) includes an article on labour underutilisation. From the August 2009 issue, labour underutilisation will be included as tables in the publication and as timeseries spreadsheets on the website.


SAMPLING ERRORS

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 30 and 31.

The interval bounded by the two limits is the 95% confidence interval, which provides another 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 April 2009 and May 2009
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	-1 700	-62 300	to	58 900
Total Unemployment	27 200	-10 200	to	64 600
Unemployment rate	0.2 pts	-0.2 pts	to	0.6 pts
Participation rate	0.1 pts	-0.3 pts	to	0.5 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 Steve Wood on Canberra (02) 6252 6525, email labourforce@abs.gov.au.