Content and design

This publication presents detailed information about unemployed people, including steps they have taken to find work, whether they looked for full-time or part-time work and the difficulties they have encountered in finding work. It also presents information about employed people who started their current job in the previous 12 months and persons employed for more than a year in their current job who looked for work in the previous 12 months. Information about these two populations includes steps taken to attain work and current job details, including occupation and full-time or part-time status of employment as well as whether considered starting or purchasing a business in the last 12 months. Demographic information is provided for all three of these groups, including state/territory of usual residence, age, sex, country of birth and level of highest non-school qualification. Information regarding owner managers and employees (excluding owner managers of incorporated enterprise) is also presented in tables.

The survey design information relevant to the Labour Force Survey also applies to the Job Search Experience Survey and other supplementary surveys, with some exceptions for special dwellings. It includes people in both urban and rural areas (excluding very-remote areas) in all states and territories. Refer to the Explanatory Notes of the publication for more information.

People aged 15 years and over who were not employed during the reference week, and:
• had actively looked for full-time or part-time work at any time in the four weeks up the end of the reference week and were available for work in the reference week; or
• were waiting to start a new job within four weeks from the end of the reference week, and could have started in the reference week if the job had been available then.

People aged 15 years and over who, during the reference week:
• worked for one hour or more for pay, profit, commission or payment in kind, in a job or business or on a farm (comprising employees, employers and own account workers); or
• worked for one hour or more without pay in a family business or on a farm (i.e. contributing family workers); or
• were employees who had a job but were not at work and were:
  • away from work for less than four weeks up to the end of the reference week; or
  • away from work for more than four weeks up to the end of the reference week and received pay for some or all of the four-week period to the end of the reference week; or
  • away from work as a standard work or shift arrangement; or
  • on strike or locked out; or
  • on workers' compensation and expected to return to their job; or
• were employers or own account workers who had a job, business or farm, but were not at work.