Monthly Population Survey

The Monthly Population Survey is an important national survey that collects vital information about Australia's workforce and has been run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics since 1960.

The nation's employment and unemployment figures are produced from this survey. Information collected from the survey tells us how many people in Australia have work, how many don't have work, and how many are looking for work (or more work than they currently have). Results of this survey are used by government, local councils, industry business, and community groups to make important decisions that can directly affect you, your family, and people you know.

Your personal information is being collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The ABS has a Privacy Policy for Statistical Information which provides more details about how personal information is protected for this survey. 

When participating in the survey your personal information is collected online or through an ABS interviewer. For any personal visits our staff will always identify themselves, show you their official ABS photo identification and clearly explain the information they are seeking and how this will be used.

For the MPS, the ABS collects and securely stores different kinds of personal information, including your: 

• name 
• age
• sex 
• postal address
• email address
• contact phone number
• sensitive personal information such as country of birth and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status.

The main part of the survey asks about your employment:

• If you are employed, you will be asked about the hours you worked, your occupation, and the type of industry in which you work.
• If you are looking for work you will be asked questions on topics such as steps you have taken to look for work, and the length of time you have been looking for work.
• If you are retired, not working, or looking for work, you will be asked questions to clarify your current situation and future intentions.

These questions are asked each month to measure changes in peoples’ circumstances over time, so while it may feel a little repetitive, it is very important that we capture whether there have been any changes from month to month so we can make sure we are producing reliable statistics and measure changes in the community accurately.

In some months you'll be asked some additional questions on various topics including employment arrangements, education, or childcare arrangements.

We collect personal information to create statistics from the MPS. 

We also collect personal information to help us run the MPS. This personal information is used to make communicating with you easier.

The ABS is committed to maximising the value of data and statistics. One way to do this is to combine data from two or more sources together. This is known as data integration. The ABS does this to create new statistics and insights that help address important questions about Australia’s communities, economy and environment, and to save you time when responding to surveys.

Data integration protects your privacy by removing personal information before analysis. During data integration your personal information will be used in a manner that is not likely to enable you to be identified.

More information about data integration and combining your information with other data is available in the Frequently Asked Questions section below.

The ABS may share information it collects as part of the DATA Scheme, established by the Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022. The ABS will only share personal information through the DATA Scheme with the written approval of the Australian Statistician.

Information shared through the DATA Scheme may only be accessed by accredited entities, and personal information must be protected at all times, in line with the Privacy Act 1988. Information can only be shared for permitted purposes and cannot be shared for national security or enforcement-related purposes. 

Consistent with the Census and Statistics Act 1905, the ABS, and any other accredited entity we work with as part of a project under the DATA Scheme, will never publicly release information in a manner likely to enable the identification of any individual. 

Requesting ABS data under the Data Availability and Transparency Act (DATA) Scheme provides more information about ABS participation in the DATA Scheme.

The ABS takes the security of the information you provide to us very seriously.

All ABS employees have signed a legally enforceable Undertaking of Fidelity and Secrecy in which they agree to keep any information, including personal information which they may deal with in the course of their work, private and confidential. This agreement applies to ABS employees for the rest of their lives, even if they leave the ABS. The penalty for breaching this is two years imprisonment, a $37,560 fine, or both.

The ABS complies with the Australian Privacy Principles. If you believe the ABS has breached these principles, our Privacy Policy for Statistical Information provides information on how to lodge a complaint.

The ABS will keep:

• names and addresses for up to 24 months

The ABS will:

• only share information that does not identify you with approved researchers and will only share this in a safe way.

The ABS will not:

• share information in a way that would identify anyone (our legislation does not allow this)
• share information with private organisations, such as direct marketing companies
• share data with other government agencies for compliance or regulation activities
• disclose your personal information to any organisation located overseas.

Our Privacy Policy outlines the penalties for ABS employees who fail to protect your data.

The MPS is a compulsory ABS survey.  The questions included in this survey are being asked under the authority of the Census and Statistics Act 1905. Under the Act, you are obliged to provide the information being requested, unless otherwise stated.

If you do not complete and submit your form, or answer the questions asked by the interviewer, you may be issued with a Notice of Direction, which is a legal direction to complete the Monthly Population Survey. Failure to comply with a Notice of Direction is an offence under the Census and Statistics Act 1905 and can result in prosecution and fines of up to $330 for each day you don't participate. It is also an offence to provide false or misleading statements or information. The penalty is a fine of up to $3,300.

Contact the ABS Privacy Officer using the details provided below if you need to access or correct personal information collected about you in relation to the MPS. If the personal information you provided in the MPS changes, you can contact the ABS on 1800 060 911.

The ABS Privacy Policy for Statistical Information has information about how you can make a complaint if you feel we have not adequately protected your privacy. The Policy describes how we will respond to your complaint, and what you can do if you are not satisfied with our response.

You can contact the ABS Privacy Officer (details below) who will respond to your enquiries or assist with complaints.

By email: privacy@abs.gov.au

By post: ABS Privacy Officer
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Locked Bag 10, Belconnen ACT 2617

The easiest way to complete the Monthly Population Survey is online.

If you have been selected in this survey you will receive a registration letter in the mail that contains instructions and a secure Form Access Code for you to register online. Once you have created your ABS survey account and registered your contact details for the Monthly Population Survey, we will send you an email each month when your survey is ready to complete.

If you are having trouble registering, completing your survey, or have lost your registration letter please call us on 1800 060 911 and an ABS officer will be happy to assist you.

If you would prefer you can also complete the survey over the phone or in person with an ABS interviewer. If this is the best option for you, please call us on 1800 060 911, or register your contact details online using the instructions and secure Form Access Code included in your registration letter. After you have registered, we can contact you on your preferred number at a time that is convenient for you.

If we don't hear from you an interviewer may come to your home to make, contact with your household, and complete the survey. ABS interviewers are here to help. Please treat them with courtesy and consideration. ABS interviewers will always identify themselves as an ABS officer and show you their official ABS photo identification. They will conduct the interview using a laptop computer. It would be appreciated if you could provide a table and chair to the interviewer.

Every month about 26,000 households participate in the Monthly Population Survey. We take a sample of households from all over Australia so that we can build a picture that includes people from all backgrounds and lifestyles. To do this, we use a fair statistical method to randomly select households. This means everyone has an equal chance of being selected for this important national survey. Once a household has been selected, another household cannot be substituted in its place as other households have already had their chance of selection, and changing the random selection could mean some parts of the community are under or overrepresented.

It is very important that all selected households complete the survey to make sure the survey results represent the whole community, so that decisions made based on the results of this survey, such as the services provided by government, local councils and community groups, are made on the right information.

You can visit our sampling methodology webpage if you are interested in reading more about how we select households for the Monthly Population Survey.

Your participation in this survey will help us to produce statistics about matters that affect the whole community, including work, unemployment, training, retirement, looking after the family and home.

The Monthly Population Survey provides information about the Australian population and workforce on a regular basis. The nation's official employment and unemployment figures are produced from this survey.

Government departments use the information from this survey to identify how and where they should be using public resources. They use this information to check how different groups of people in the Australian community are impacted by existing policies, and to inform future changes to policy. Industry, trade unions and academics also use information from this survey for research and to inform important decisions about employment services, industry support and education.

By taking part you ensure that your experiences and circumstances become an important part of the bigger picture of life in Australia today, and help to shape policies that affect everyone in the nation.

Full results of the survey are available free of charge for everyone on the ABS website in Labour Force, Australia.

All household members over the age of 15 are included in the Monthly Population Survey. The questions can usually be answered for all of your household members in a few minutes and the answers can be provided by any adult member of the household, or all members of the house can complete their own section online, over the phone or in person.

You will be included in the survey once a month for eight months. Completing the survey for eight months is important as this allows us to measure any changes in your household's situation over time. This information is combined with other households to enable the ABS to produce reliable labour force statistics and measure change accurately at national and state levels.

Most months the survey will be very quick and completed in less than 10 minutes. Some months may have some extra questions about important topics relevant to the workforce, and how long these take can vary from person to person.

If you move away from your address during the eight months you will not need to continue completing the survey as the new occupants of the selected address will replace you in the survey.

An ABS interviewer who speaks the language of the householder will conduct the interview if possible. Alternatively, arrangements can be made to organise an interpreter to conduct the interview. Please call 1800 060 911 (free call, excluding mobile phones) so that these arrangements can be made.

Yes, if you are retired you represent an important group of Australians, and we need your information to make sure ALL Australians are represented in survey results. To provide accurate statistics we need to survey a sample of households that provide a balanced representation of all households across Australia. If we didn't include retired people in the survey, we would be unable to collect accurate information on the proportion of Australians who are looking for work, as estimates would not take into account the whole population. So, while we understand that in most cases there will be no change month to month in your answers to questions, it is still very important that we check in with you each month to make sure the same people are living at the address and there have been no other changes to your work status.

By participating you help to ensure accurate statistics are produced to understand Australia's labour market, and services are provided in the right areas for those who need them most. If you need help completing the survey online or would prefer to complete over the phone, please call 1800 060 911 and an ABS officer will assist you.

The information you provide may be combined with the information from other respondents to produce vital statistics about Australian households.

The ABS is committed to maximising the value of data and statistics. One way to do this is to combine data from two or more sources together. This is known as data integration. The ABS does this to create new statistics and insights that help address important questions about Australia’s communities, economy and environment, and to save you time when responding to surveys.

The new insights created through data integration assist policy makers and researchers to better understand Australian families, communities, industry and the economy. This wider understanding can help to improve the development and delivery of government services and programs in areas such as health, infrastructure, housing and other community services.

By reusing existing data, we can also reduce the amount or frequency of information needed from our surveys, saving you time, and using public money more effectively.

We take the privacy and security of your personal information seriously:

•  The MPS has a specific Privacy Impact Assessment for data integration purposes.
• Data integration protects your privacy by removing personal information before analysis.
• You can learn more about data integration of the Monthly Population Survey by visiting our Data Integration page or the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project.

You will be sent a survey guide and registration letter in the mail to advise that you have been selected in the Monthly Population Survey and explain the purpose of the survey. For any personal visits our staff will always identify themselves, show you their official ABS photo identification and clearly explain the information they are seeking and how this will be used. ABS interviewers are here to help. Please treat them with courtesy and consideration.

You may receive calls from numbers that you are not familiar with including mobile phones or "unknown" numbers. This is because many of our Interviewers are teleworkers and use ABS authorised mobile phones and office phones to conduct interviews over the phone.

We may source your phone number from the Sensis White Pages if we need to contact you. This information is kept secure and confidential in accordance with the ABS Privacy Policy. For more information on how your privacy will be protected please see the Privacy Impact Assessment on linkage of the Address Register with Census or contact data.

Remember - The ABS will never ask you to provide or confirm your bank details or tax file number (TFN).

If you are concerned you can call us on 1800 060 911 and we can confirm your selection in the survey and the identity of the staff member who is contacting you.

Please see our Survey Account Help page for assistance with technical difficulties and answers to frequently asked questions on creating and using an ABS Survey Account.

You can also call us on 1800 060 911 and one of our team will be happy to assist you.

Your secure Form Access Code is included in the letter that you will receive in the mail.

You'll need this code to link the Monthly Population Survey to your ABS Survey Account and complete your contact details form. If you are having trouble finding or using your Form Access Code please call 1800 060 911 and an ABS officer will be able to assist you.

Yes you can. The survey questionnaire contains a gender question, allowing survey participants to answer Male, Female or Another Term. If you select Another Term, a text box will appear and you can describe your gender in a way that is most meaningful to you. Examples include ‘non-binary’ and ‘gender-fluid’.

The ABS is committed to implementing the 'Standard for Sex, Gender, Variations of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation Variables, 2020' for its household-based surveys, including the Monthly Population Survey.

If you need help or more information about the Monthly Population Survey, please call us on 1800 060 911 Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm AEST.

For help outside these hours please leave a message with your contact details and we will call you back to assist you. You can also use our Household Survey help request form to outline the details of your situation and your contact details, and we will be in touch.