FEBRUARY KEY FIGURES

		Jan 2009	Feb 2009	Jan 09 to Feb 09		Feb 08 to Feb 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 811.3	10 811.7	0.4		0.8	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	543.9	561.1	17.2		22.2	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	4.8	4.9	0.1	pts	0.8	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.3	65.4	0.0	pts	-0.1	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 808.7	10 810.4	1.8		0.7	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	543.5	590.5	47.1		36.5	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	4.8	5.2	0.4	pts	1.3	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.3	65.5	0.2	pts	0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

FEBRUARY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• EMPLOYMENT increased to 10,811,700
• UNEMPLOYMENT increased to 561,100
• UNEMPLOYMENT RATE increased to 4.9%
• PARTICIPATION RATE increased to 65.4%

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

EMPLOYMENT

• increased by 1,800 to 10,810,400. Full-time employment decreased by 53,800 to 7,664,200 and part-time employment increased by 55,600 to 3,146,200.

UNEMPLOYMENT

• increased by 47,100 to 590,500. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased by 44,400 to 426,000 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased by 2,600 to 164,500.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

• increased by 0.4 percentage points to 5.2%. The male unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points to 5.1%, and the female unemployment rate increased by 0.5 percentage points to 5.3%.

PARTICIPATION RATE

• increased by 0.2 percentage points to 65.5%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
March 2009	9 April 2009
April 2009	7 May 2009
May 2009	11 June 2009
June 2009	9 July 2009
July 2009	6 August 2009
August 2009	10 September 2009

CHANGES THIS MONTH

As foreshadowed in the October 2008 to January 2009 issues of Labour Force, Australia (cat.no. 6202.0), labour force estimates in this issue are based on population benchmarks derived from the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. As a result, estimates for the periods June 2001 to January 2009 have been revised. These changes have had minimal impact on the key aggregates.

Other changes incorporated in this issue include: changes to Labour Force Statistical Regions; changes to industry and occupation classifications; and annual seasonal reanalysis. For detailed information refer to page 3.


ROUNDING

Estimates of monthly change shown on the front cover 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 ERRORS

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Because the entire population is not enumerated, the published estimates and the movements derived from them are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of this variability and appear on pages 29 and 30.

The 95% confidence intervals below provide another way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates from sample surveys. The interval bounded by the two limits is the 95% confidence interval, which represents a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

Movements in seasonally adjusted series between January and February 2009
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	1 800	-58 800	to	62 400
Total Unemployment	47 100	9 300	to	84 900
Unemployment rate	0.4 pts	0.0 pts	to	0.8 pts
Participation rate	0.2 pts	-0.2 pts	to	0.6 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Steve Wood on Canberra (02) 6252 6525.