OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

		Sep 2010	Oct 2010	Sep 10 to Oct 10		Oct 09 to Oct 10
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 313.7	11 339.4	25.7		3.2	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	623.9	628.2	4.2		-5.3	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.2	5.2	0.0	pts	-0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.7	0.1	pts	0.4	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 326.2	11 355.9	29.7		3.4	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	614.4	646.5	32.1		-3.4	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.1	5.4	0.2	pts	-0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.6	65.9	0.3	pts	0.6	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

OCTOBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 11,339,400
• Unemployment increased to 628,200
• Unemployment rate at 5.2%
• Participation rate increased 0.1 pt to 65.7%
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,601.2 million hours

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 29,700 (0.3%) to 11,355,900. Full-time employment decreased 14,100 to 7,970,900 and part-time employment increased 43,800 to 3,385,000.
• Unemployment increased 32,100 (5.2%) to 646,500. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased 30,000 to 456,400 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased 2,100 to 190,100.
• Unemployment rate increased 0.2 pts to 5.4%. The male unemployment rate increased 0.2 pts to 5.2% and the female unemployment rate increased 0.3 pts to 5.6%.
• Participation rate increased 0.3 pts to a record high of 65.9%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased 7.9 million hours (0.5%) to 1,602.6 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
November 2010	9 December 2010
December 2010	13 January 2011
January 2011	10 February 2011
February 2011	10 March 2011
March 2011	7 April 2011
April 2011	12 May 2011

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

As foreshadowed in the September 2010 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) in the article
Labour Force Survey Population Benchmarks, the ABS has changed the assumptions used to create the population benchmarks underpinning the Labour Force Survey estimates from this issue. Refer to the article in this publication titled Changes this month.


ROUNDING

Estimates of monthly change 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 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 two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a 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 September 2010 and October 2010
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	29 700	-24 900	to	84 300
Total Unemployment	32 100	1 100	to	63 100
Unemployment rate	0.2 pts	0.0 pts	to	0.4 pts
Participation rate	0.3 pts	-0.1 pts	to	0.7 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 Labour Force on Canberra (02) 6252 6525, email labourforce@abs.gov.au.