Employment and Australian Defence Force

Information about employment and Australian Defence Force service was obtained from men and women aged 18 years and over in the 2021-22 PSS. In addition, where a respondent had a current partner who they were living with, information about their employment was also collected.

• Employed persons were those aged 18 years and over who reported that, in the week preceding the survey, they had worked in a job, business or farm, or had a job but were absent during that week.
• Unemployed persons were those aged 18 years and over who were not employed in the reference week, but actively looked for work during the previous four weeks and were available to start or waiting to start work within the following four weeks.

The following persons were also classified as unemployed:

• Persons who usually work less than 1 hour per week.
• Persons who only have unpaid volunteer or trainee work arrangements.

Persons not in the labour force were those aged 18 years and over who were neither employed nor unemployed, as defined above.

For most employment related data items, data relates to the respondent's main job. For respondents who had more than one job at the time of the survey, the main job was defined as the paid job in which they usually worked the most hours.

Employment information for the respondent was collected using the short-form version of the questions used in the  monthly ABS Labour Force Survey.

For respondents with a current partner, a single question was used, which asked the respondent to identify which of the specified categories best described their partner’s employment status.  The categories provided were similar to those outlined in the Labour force status section below.

Information about the full-time/part-time labour force status of the respondent was collected. The output data item includes the following categories:

• employed full-time (if usually work 35 hours or more a week in all jobs)
• employed part-time (if usually worked one hour to less than 35 hours a week in all jobs)
• unemployed looking for full-time work only (actively seeking full-time work in last 4 weeks)
• unemployed looking for part-time work only (actively seeking part-time work in last 4 weeks)
• unemployed, looking for full-time or part-time work (actively seeking full-time or part-time work in last 4 weeks)
• not in the labour force.

This data item is new in 2021-22 and defines a person’s employment status for the main job held in the week prior to the survey. Classification categories include:

• employee
• owner manager of incorporated enterprise with employees
• owner manager of incorporated enterprise without employees
• owner manager of unincorporated enterprise with employees
• contributing family worker.

Refers to reported hours usually worked (in all jobs) per week by the respondent. Hours in single units are recorded and are available for output. Standard groupings of hours are:

• 1 to 9
• 10 to 19
• 20 to 29
• 30 to 34
• 35 to 39
• 40 to 44
• 45 to 49
• 50 to 59
• 60 to 69
• 70 and over.

Duration of job search refers to the period of time from when a person began looking for work (or ceased employment) to the date of the survey. For persons who began looking for work while still employed, the item refers to the period from the time the person last worked until the date of interview.

The data is output as both a continuous variable item, measured in completed weeks, and a categorical variable item, grouped into the following time periods:

• under 4 weeks
• 4 weeks and under 13 weeks
• 13 weeks and under 26 weeks
• 26 weeks and under 52 weeks
• 52 weeks and under 104 weeks
• 104 weeks and over.

Information about the number of weeks since last worked was also collected separately for respondents classified as unemployed and is output as both a continuous variable item and a categorical variable item, using the same time period groupings as those above for duration of job search.

Respondents who were employed were asked to provide details about their occupation and industry of their main job. Open text responses were then coded to ABS standard classifications.

Industry of employment is coded to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006 (Revision 2.0). Division-level categories include:

• Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Mining
• Manufacturing
• Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services
• Construction
• Wholesale Trade
• Retail Trade
• Accommodation and Food Services
• Transport, Postal and Warehousing
• Information Media and Telecommunications
• Financial and Insurance Services
• Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Services
• Administrative and Support Services
• Public Administration and Safety
• Education and Training
• Health Care and Social Assistance
• Arts and Recreation Services
• Other Services.

Occupation is coded using the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO), 2013, Version 1.3. Major group categories include:

• Managers
• Professionals
• Technicians and Trades Workers
• Community and Personal Service Workers
• Clerical and Administrative Workers
• Sales Workers
• Machinery Operators and Drivers
• Labourers.

For both items, where insufficient information was provided in a text response for assigning a code, an 'inadequately described' code was allocated during processing, while 'not further defined' categories are used when there was insufficient information to code the response to a detailed category in the classifications.

For the first time, the 2021-22 PSS asked respondents whether they had ever served in the Australian Defence Force, including both regular and reserves service in the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy, and Royal Australian Air Force.

The data items and related output categories for this topic are contained within the SPS Level – Employment tab in the data item list available under Downloads.

Data for this topic has been collected to examine the relationship between labour force status and experiences of violence. Current partner data for this topic can be used to further understand the characteristics of current partners that do and do not use violence.

Data items from this topic should not be used on their own to produce population estimates of labour force participation. The monthly ABS Labour Force Survey is a more appropriate source for this data.

Points to be considered when using and interpreting data from this topic include the following:

• Responses are based on the current labour force status of the respondent at the time of interview and may not be reflective of their labour force status at the time they experienced violence. It is recommended that these data items are used only when examining recent experiences of violence (i.e. in the previous 12 or 24 months), as characteristics are more likely to have changed over longer timeframes.
• Labour force status information for the respondent was collected using a short-form version of the questions used in the monthly ABS Labour Force Survey. A single question was asked to determine the current partner’s employment status.
• Labour force status of current partner was collected via the respondent. If the respondent did not know or declined to provide information about their current partner’s employment details, a ‘Don’t know’ response category was available and is included in the current partner output item.

Labour force status data in the 2021-22 PSS is comparable with the 1996 Women's Safety Survey and the 2005, 2012, and 2016 PSS cycles. However, the following should be considered:

• Prior to 2012, people who worked less than 1 hour were classified as employed, whereas from 2012 onwards they are classified as unemployed or not in the labour force.
• Prior to 2016, for the data items 'duration of unemployment' and 'time since last worked,' the PSS asked the respondent when they last worked for 2 weeks or more, whereas from 2016 onwards the PSS asked when the respondent last worked, regardless of duration.
• Occupation in main job and industry of main job are new data items in 2021-22, therefore comparative data from previous cycles in not available.
• In 2021-22, current partner employment data was collected via a single question, whereas previous cycles used the short-form labour force question set. Therefore, the current partner’s labour force status was selected by the respondent from a set of response categories, rather than the status being derived based on a series of questions.