OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

		Sep 2014	Oct 2014	Sep 14 to Oct 14		Oct 13 to Oct 14
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 587.6	11 589.0	1.3		1.0	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	763.6	768.7	5.0		9.1	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	6.2	6.2	0.0	pts	0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.6	64.6	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 568.1	11 592.2	24.1		0.9	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	765.0	772.1	7.1		10.2	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	6.2	6.2	0.0	pts	0.5	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.5	64.6	0.1	pts	-0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

OCTOBER KEY POINTS


NEW SEASONAL ADJUSTEMENT TECHNIQUE

• The seasonality of the labour force data has been re-estimated with specific adjustments made for the changed pattern of supplementary surveys. These adjustments have been applied to the seasonally adjusted series from December 2013 onwards. For further details see the Information note on pages 6-16.

TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 11,589,000 from a revised September 2014 estimate.
• Unemployment increased to 768,700.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 6.2% from a revised September 2014 estimate.
• Participation rate remained steady at 64.6%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 0.4 million hours to 1,607.9 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 24,100 to 11,592,200 from a revised September 2014 estimate. Full-time employment increased 33,400 to 8,058,500 and part-time employment decreased 9,400 to 3,533,700.
• Unemployment increased 7,100 to 772,100. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 10,900 to 532,100 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 18,100 to 240,000.
• Unemployment rate remained at 6.2% from a revised September 2014 estimate.
• Participation rate increased 0.1 pts to 64.6%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 24.9 million hours (1.6%) to 1 ,614.4 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
November 2014	11 December 2014
December 2014	15 January 2015
January 2015	12 February 2015
February 2015	12 March 2015
March 2015	9 April 2015
April 2015	7 May 2015

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

For information on changes in this issue relating to the new seasonal adjustment method, new labour force outputs and quarterly rebenchmarking refer to page 5.


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 SEPTEMBER 2014 AND OCTOBER 2014
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	24 100	-33 300	to	81 500
Total Unemployment	7 100	-31 100	to	45 300
Unemployment rate	0.0 pts	-0.4 pts	to	0.4 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 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.