OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

		Sep 2017	Oct 2017	Sep 17 to Oct 17		Oct 16 to Oct 17
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	12 281.2	12 301.2	20.0		2.9	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	712.3	709.4	-3.0		-1.6	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.5	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.2	0.0	pts	0.7	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	12 293.4	12 297.1	3.7		3.0	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	709.6	701.5	-8.1		-1.2	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.4	-0.1	pts	-0.2	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.1	-0.1	pts	0.7	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

OCTOBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 20,000 to 12,301,200.
• Unemployment decreased 3,000 to 709,400.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.5%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 65.2%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 3.5 million hours (0.2%) to 1,720.3 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 3,700 to 12,297,100. Full-time employment increased 24,300 to 8,425,400 and part-time employment decreased 20,700 to 3,871,700.
• Unemployment decreased 8,100 to 701,500. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work remained steady at 485,900 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased 8,100 to 215,600.
• Unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pts to 5.4%.
• Participation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 65.1%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 4.6 million hours (0.3%) to 1,723.7 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
November 2017	14 December 2017
December 2017	18 January 2018
January 2018	15 February 2018
February 2018	22 March 2018
March 2018	19 April 2018
April 2018	17 May 2018

UPDATE ON TIMING OF MAJOR REBENCHMARKING

For an update on the revised timing of the major rebenchmarking please refer to "What's new in the Labour Force". This advice was previously published in the September 2017 issue.


ROUNDING

Estimates of changes shown on the front cover and used in the commentary have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movement 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. Published estimates and movements are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of sampling variability. The interval bounded by two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates. There is a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

MOVEMENTS IN SEASONALLY ADJUSTED SERIES BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 2017 AND OCTOBER 2017
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	3 700	-55 700	to	63 100
Total Unemployment	-8 100	-44 500	to	28 300
Unemployment rate	-0.1 pts	-0.3 pts	to	0.1 pts
Participation rate	-0.1 pts	-0.5 pts	to	0.3 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, email <client.services@abs.gov.au> or contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.