AGGREGATE MONTHLY HOURS WORKED
On 6 August 2009, the ABS introduced a new measure of hours worked, namely aggregate monthly hours worked, which is the total number of hours actually worked in Australia in a calendar month. This new measure was released in an article Aggregate Monthly Hours Worked in Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0). The seasonally adjusted and trend estimates allow a direct time series comparison of the hours worked by Australians.
These new estimates are intended to compliment existing employment and unemployment estimates and assist analysts to understand how the labour market is responding to the current economic challenges. For example, whether employers are reducing employee hours rather than retrenching employees in an attempt to reduce costs.
Currently only the Australia level series has been released. The ABS is investigating the feasibility of producing additional aggregate monthly hours worked series, such as for males and females. The results of this investigation, as well as a summary of the methodology used to calculate the estimates, will be included in Information Paper: Expansion of Hours Worked Estimates from the Labour Force Survey (cat. no. 6290.0.55.001), which will be released on 8 September 2009.
Aggregate monthly hours worked estimates will be released in Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0), on an ongoing basis, beginning with the August 2009 issue to be released on 10 September 2009.
For more information please contact Susan Schemen on (02) 6252 5171 or email <susan.schemen@abs.gov.au>.
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