18/11/2009 Note: Replacement pdf. Minor corrections to amend two spelling mistakes: Notes section title amended to Revisions to Population Benchmarks; and commentary for Unemployed Persons: Trend Estimates - Females amended to reference females.

All Labour Force estimates are not affected by these changes.

OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

		Sep 2009	Oct 2009	Sep 09 to Oct 09		Oct 08 to Oct 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 799.3	10 807.9	8.7		0.0	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	666.2	669.0	2.7		35.6	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.8	5.8	0.0	pts	1.5	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.2	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 807.1	10 831.6	24.5		0.2	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	659.0	670.1	11.1		34.3	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.7	5.8	0.1	pts	1.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.2	0.1	pts	-0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

OCTOBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 10,807,900
• Unemployment increased to 669,000
• Unemployment rate remained at 5.8%
• Participation rate remained at 65.2%
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,518.5 million hours

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 24,500 to 10,831,600. Full-time employment increased 2,900 to 7,590,800 and part-time employment increased 21,500 to 3,240,800.
• Unemployment increased 11,100 to 670,100. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased 3,500 to 501,100 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased 7,600 to 169,000.
• Unemployment rate increased 0.1 pt to 5.8%. The male unemployment rate increased 0.2 pts to 6.0% and the female unemployment rate remained at 5.6%.
• Participation rate remained at 65.2%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 1.9 million hours to 1,521.1 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
November 2009	10 December 2009
December 2009	14 January 2010
January 2010	11 February 2010
February 2010	11 March 2010
March 2010	8 April 2010
April 2010	13 May 2010

CHANGES THIS MONTH

As foreshadowed in recent editions of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) the re-instatement of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) sample commenced in September and will continue until December 2009. Detailed information about the sample reinstatement is available in Information Paper: Labour force Survey Sample Design, Nov 2007 (Third edition) (cat. no. 6269.0).


REVISION TO POPULATION BENCHMARKS

In March 2009 the ABS released the September 2008 issue of Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0) detailing revisions to Net Overseas Migration (NOM) estimates. The revisions would normally have been included in population benchmarks underpinning the April 2009 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0).

However, due to the significance of the revisions, updating the population benchmarks using the pre-existing methodology would have introduced statistical noise into the timeseries. The ABS has decided to redevelop its methodology to ensure a consistent timeseries.

The ABS will revise Labour Force Survey population benchmarks from November 2007 in mid 2010, and be inclusive of estimates in the September 2009 issue of Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0), to be released in March 2010.

The revisions will impact on level estimates, such as the number of persons employed and unemployed, but will have negligible impact on movement estimates or estimates of rates, such as the unemployment rate.


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