SEPTEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Aug 2018	Sep 2018	Aug 18 to Sep 18		Sep 17 to Sep 18
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	12 614.4	12 640.8	26.4		2.4	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	699.0	688.5	-10.5		-4.1	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.2	5.2	-0.1	pts	-0.3	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.6	0.0	pts	0.3	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	12 630.7	12 636.3	5.6		2.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	702.9	665.8	-37.2		-6.6	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.3	5.0	-0.3	pts	-0.5	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.7	65.4	-0.2	pts	0.1	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

SEPTEMBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 26,400 to 12,640,800.
• Unemployment decreased 10,500 to 688,500.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.2%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 65.6%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 2.8 million hours (0.2%) to 1,755.7 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 5,600 to 12,636,300. Full-time employment increased 20,300 to 8,654,400 and part-time employment decreased 14,700 to 3,981,900.
• Unemployment decreased 37,200 to 665,800. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 38,000 to 449,700 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 900 to 216,100.
• Unemployment rate decreased by 0.3 pts to 5.0%.
• Participation rate decreased by 0.2 pts to 65.4%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 6.2 million hours (0.4%) to 1,757.5 million hours.

LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• The monthly trend underemployment rate decreased to 8.3 per cent. The monthly underutilisation rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 13.5 per cent.
• The monthly seasonally adjusted underemployment rate remained steady at 8.3 per cent. The monthly underutilisation rate decreased 0.2 percentage points to 13.3 per cent.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
October 2018	15 November 2018
November 2018	20 December 2018
December 2018	24 January 2019
January 2019	21 February 2019
February 2019	21 March 2019
March 2019	18 April 2019

GM1 DATA CUBE

As advised in Labour Force, Australia, September 2017 (cat no 6202.0), the GM1 data cube in Summary Record Database (SRD) format is being phased out this month. The ABS continues to release the GM1 data cube in pivot table format.

This pivot table will increase the accessibility of Labour Force data and provide a long term replacement for the unsupported SRD format. The pivot table reflects the design and utility of the SRD format as closely as possible. In addition, the inclusion of a Comma Separated Values (CSV) source worksheet in the pivot table should facilitate the data's use in a wide range of software.

The phasing out of the GM1 SRD represents the final stage of the Labour Force statistics transition from the SRD format, which has already been completed for all other products.


CESSATION OF A PDF PRODUCT

The ABS intends to cease publishing a PDF as part of the release of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0). The October 2018 issue, released in November 2018, is expected to be the final release with a PDF.
The ABS has been considering the future of this PDF for a number of years, which is now used by less than 1% of Labour Force data users. The move away from bulletin-style products is a trend that has been consistently observed internationally, with many national statistical organisations moving to more dynamic products for their labour market statistics. It is for this reason that most other labour statistics releases have already moved away from producing PDF as part of their release.

All of the information that is contained in the PDF will continue to be available elsewhere in this release. Should you have any concerns regarding this transition, please contact us at labourforce@abs.gov.au.


NEW LABOUR FORCE SURVEY SAMPLE

As previously highlighted, the ABS is currently phasing in a new sample design. This began with the incoming rotation group in July 2018 and will continue through to February 2019. An information paper titled Information Paper: Labour Force Survey Sample Design, Jul 2018 (cat. no. 6269.0) was released on 30 July 2018 with detailed information on the new sample. As with each regular sample design, the impacts on the data are expected to be minimal and the ABS will monitor the quality of the estimates over the period the sample is phased in.


ROUNDING

Estimates of changes 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, movement 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 movements are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of sampling variability. 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 AUGUST 2018 AND SEPTEMBER 2018
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	5 600	-54 800	to	66 000
Total Unemployment	-37 200	-73 800	to	-600
Unemployment rate	-0.3 pts	-0.5 pts	to	-0.1 pts
Participation rate	-0.2 pts	-0.6 pts	to	0.2 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, email <client.services@abs.gov.au> or contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.