SEPTEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Aug 2009	Sep 2009	Aug 09 to Sep 09		Sep 08 to Sep 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 781.3	10 786.0	4.7		-0.2	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	664.2	664.7	0.5		37.5	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.8	5.8	0.0	pts	1.5	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.1	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 765.0	10 805.6	40.6		0.1	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	662.4	658.6	-3.8		34.4	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.8	5.7	-0.1	pts	1.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.1	65.2	0.1	pts	-0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

SEPTEMBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 10,786,000
• Unemployment increased to 664,700
• Unemployment rate remained at 5.8%
• Participation rate decreased to 65.1%
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,515.4 million hours

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased by 40,600 to 10,805,600. Full-time employment increased by 35,400 to 7,589,800 and part-time employment increased by 5,200 to 3,215,800.
• Unemployment decreased by 3,800 to 658,600. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased by 9,500 to 497,400 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased by 13,300 to 161,200.
• Unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pt to 5.7%. The male unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pt to 5.8%, and the female unemployment rate remained at 5.6%.
• Participation rate increased 0.1 pt to 65.2%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 13.4 million hours to 1,522.4 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
October 2009	12 November 2009
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

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. The December 2009 issue, to be released on 15 January 2010, will be the first under the fully re-instated sample.

Private dwellings in larger urban centres and less remote areas and Indigenous community dwellings represent 87% of the re-instated sample and will be progressively re-instated over the four months. The remaining 13%, dwellings in the more remote, less populated areas and for non-private dwellings, will be fully re-instated in October 2009.

The full sample re-instatement will decrease the standard errors on LFS estimates by approximately 15%, evident from the December 2009 issue, with gradual improvement observed from September 2009. A short term impact is expected in October 2009 when the 13% component of the re-instated sample is introduced.

Detailed information about the sample reinstatement is available in Information Paper: Labour force Survey Sample Design, Nov 2007 (Third edition) (cat. no. 6269.0).


SAMPLING ERROR

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 33 and 34. 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 August and September 2009
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	40 600	-19 400	to	100 600
Total Unemployment	-3 800	-39 200	to	31 600
Unemployment rate	-0.1 pts	-0.5 pts	to	0.3 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