Labour Force, Australia, Detailed

Annual averages are important for understanding the current state of the labour market, and providing medium and long-term signals.

However, unusual, sudden and/or extreme changes in the labour market (e.g. changes to regular and seasonal patterns in employment, working hours, job search or availability as a result of COVID-19) can be difficult to account for in the short-term using a 12 month moving average. The application of an annual average to the original regional estimates in Table 16b is unlikely to accurately or quickly detect turning points in the time series during periods of significant change, which should be considered before drawing any conclusions from these estimates.

For advice on reporting data from our regional labour force products (Pivot tables RM1, RM3 and Tables 16, 16B, 16C) see Advice on reporting regional labour force data.

The thematic groupings and navigation for labour statistics on the ABS website are being updated to better reflect the current range of available labour statistics, better align key labour market concepts with website themes and navigation, and improve discoverability. The new themes (and the statistical releases which will appear under each theme) can be viewed on our Beta website, at beta.abs.gov.au/statistics.html#labour.

The changes will be implemented on the ABS website on Friday 25 March 2022.

The new themes will be:

• Employment and unemployment
• Jobs
• Earnings and working conditions
• Labour Accounts

Labour Force, Australia and Labour Force, Australia, Detailed statistics will remain in the 'Employment and unemployment' theme (abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/).

The key changes to the current 'Employment and unemployment' and 'Earnings and work hours' themes include:

• addition of a 'Jobs' theme - to reflect the increasing range of jobs-related data ABS is releasing – including Weekly payroll jobs and wages and Jobs in Australia (currently in 'Earnings and work hours'), in addition to the longstanding statistics on Job vacancies and Job mobility (currently in 'Employment and unemployment').
• addition of a 'Labour Accounts' theme - for cross-cutting quarterly and annual labour account data on jobs, people, hours and payments (currently in 'Employment and unemployment').
• renaming the 'Earnings and work hours' theme to 'Earnings and working conditions' - to provide a clearer pathway the large range of information available on working conditions beyond wages (work arrangements, flexibility, workplace relations, etc) and reflect that key hours data are available from the 'Employment and unemployment' theme (from the monthly Labour Force Survey) and the Labour Account.

While these changes will result in a change to the placement of some statistical releases, and some URLs, there will be automatic redirects in place. These redirects will ensure that existing URLs and bookmarks will continue to work.