OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

		Sep 2008	Oct 2008	Sep 08 to Oct 08		Oct 07 to Oct 08
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 743.9	10 752.8	8.8		1.9	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	478.0	478.9	0.9		0.8	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	4.3	4.3	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.2	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 734.0	10 768.3	34.3		2.1	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	480.9	487.9	7.0		2.2	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	4.3	4.3	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.1	65.3	0.1	pts	0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

OCTOBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• EMPLOYMENT increased to 10,752,800
• UNEMPLOYMENT increased to 478,900
• UNEMPLOYMENT RATE remained steady at 4.3%
• PARTICIPATION RATE remained steady at 65.2%

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

EMPLOYMENT

• increased by 34,300 to 10,768,300. Full-time employment decreased by 9,200 to 7,688,200 and part-time employment increased by 43,500 to 3,080,100.

UNEMPLOYMENT

• increased by 7,000 to 487,900. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased by 10,200 to 338,200 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased by 3,200 to 149,700.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

• remained steady at 4.3%. The male unemployment rate remained steady at 4.0%, and the female unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.8%.

PARTICIPATION RATE

• increased by 0.1 percentage point to 65.3%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
November 2008	11 December 2008
December 2008	15 January 2009
January 2009	12 February 2009
February 2009	12 March 2009
March 2009	9 April 2009
April 2009	7 May 2009

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 28 and 29.

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 September and October 2008
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	34 300	-26 300	to	94 900
Total Unemployment	7 000	-24 600	to	38 600
Unemployment rate	0.0 pts	-0.2 pts	to	0.2 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 or Mary Piechowski on Canberra (02) 6252 6525.