LABOUR FORCE STATUS
JUSTIFICATION
Information about labour force status is essential for a wide range of social and economic policy and planning purposes. The Census is the only source of data on labour force status at the small area level and for small population groups.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Data on labour force status, and status in employment, have been obtained in every Census since 1911. In recent Censuses, respondents were asked to answer a series of questions from which labour force status was derived.
In both the 1996 and 2001 Censuses, a question about availability to start work was included so that counts of unemployed people in the Census would be more comparable with data collected in the ABS monthly Labour Force Survey.
Changes to the questions and derivations for the 2006 Census meant that the former combined labour force status and status in employment data item was no longer available. Labour force status was made available as a stand-alone data item, with a user defined field created for the status of employment data item. A related data item, employment type, is also available.
USER REQUIREMENTS
The questions used to determine a person’s labour force status enable:
- each person aged 15 years or over to be classified as either in the labour force or not in the labour force
- people in the labour force to be classified as employed or unemployed
- employed people to be classified as full-time or part-time.
Users require these data to provide:
- benchmarks for assessing labour force changes for small geographic areas and for small population groups, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, migrants from particular countries, age groups, etc.
- number of people not in the labour force.
AVAILABILITY OF NON-CENSUS DATA
While regular ABS surveys provide data on labour force status, the need for such data at small area level and for small population groups can only be met by inclusion of the topic in the Census.
The ABS Monthly Labour Force Survey (results released in Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0 and associated electronic products 6291.0.55.001 and 6291.0.55.003) provides data on the labour force status of the civilian population aged 15 years and over.
POSSIBLE CHANGES FOR 2011
For the 2011 Census, the ABS will consider asking a question about the main activity (study, retirement, etc.) of people who are not in the labour force.
2006 CENSUS QUESTIONS
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