Labour Force, Australia

• Employment increased by 17,500 to 12,976,300 people. Full-time employment increased by 8,900 to 8,851,000 people and part-time employment increased by 8,600 to 4,125,300 people.
• Unemployment decreased by 4,400 to 703,600 people.
• Unemployment rate decreased by less than 0.1 pts to 5.1%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 66.0%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 2.9 million hours to 1,788.2 million hours.
   

• Employment increased by 28,900 to 12,981,600 people. Full-time employment decreased by 300 to 8,834,700 people and part-time employment increased by 29,200 to 4,146,900 people.
• Unemployment decreased by 12,900 to 693,100 people.
• Unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 pts to 5.1%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 66.0%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 8.2 million hours to 1,791.1 million hours.
   

• The monthly trend underemployment rate remained steady at 8.3%. The monthly underutilisation rate remained steady at 13.5%.
• The monthly seasonally adjusted underemployment rate remained steady at 8.3%. The monthly underutilisation rate decreased by 0.1 pts to 13.4%.
   

Australia's trend estimate of employment increased by 17,500 people in December 2019, with:

• the number of unemployed people decreasing by 4,400 people;
• the unemployment rate decreasing by less than 0.1 pts to 5.1%;
• the underemployment rate remaining steady at 8.3%;
• the underutilisation rate remaining steady at 13.5%;
• the participation rate remaining steady at 66.0%; and
• the employment to population ratio remaining steady at 62.6%.
   

Over the past year, trend employment increased by 260,900 people (or 2.1%), which was above the average annual growth rate over the past 20 years of 2.0%. Over the same 12 months, the trend employment to population ratio, which is a measure of how employed the population (aged 15 years and over) is, increased by 0.3 percentage points (pts) to 62.6%.

Trend employment increased by 17,500 people (0.14%) between November 2019 and December 2019. This was below the monthly average growth rate over the last 20 years of 0.16%.

Underpinning these net changes in employment is extensive dynamic change, which occurs each month in the labour market. In recent months, there has been more than 300,000 people entering and leaving employment. There is also further dynamic change in the hours that people work, which results in changes in the full-time and part-time composition of employment.

Trend full-time employment increased by 8,900 people between November 2019 and December 2019, and part-time employment increased by 8,600 people. Compared to a year ago, there were 132,600 more people employed full-time and 128,300 more people employed part-time. This compositional change has led to an increase in the part-time share of employment from 31.4% to 31.8%.

The trend estimate of monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 2.9 million hours (0.2%) to 1,788.2 million hours in December 2019. Over the past year, monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 1.7%, below the 2.1% increase in employed people. In December 2019, the average hours worked per employed person was around 137.8 hours per month or around 31.7 hours per week.

The trend unemployment rate decreased by less than 0.1 pts to 5.1% in December 2019. The number of unemployed people decreased by 4,400 in December 2019 to 703,600 people, and by 31,400 people since December 2018.

The trend participation rate remained steady at 66.0% in December 2019, and was 0.4 pts higher than in December 2018. The female participation rate remained steady at 61.2% and the male participation rate decreased by 0.1 pts to 70.9%.

The labour force includes the total number of employed and unemployed people. Over the past 12 months, the labour force increased by 292,300 people (2.2%), which was above the rate of increase for the total Civilian Population aged 15 years and over (1.6%).

The trend participation rate for 15-64 year olds, which controls (in part) for the effects of an aging population, remained steady at 78.6%. The gap between male and female participation rates in this age group was less than 10 pts, at 83.1% and 74.3% respectively, continuing the long term convergence of male and female participation.

The trend participation rate for 15-24 year olds (who are often referred to as the "youth" group in the labour market) remained steady at 68.1%. The unemployment rate for this group remained steady at 11.6% in December 2019, and has increased by 0.2 pts since December 2018.

The trend series smooths the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.

Seasonally adjusted employment increased by 28,900 people in December 2019 to 12,981,600 people. The underlying composition of the net change was a decrease of 300 people in full-time employment and an increase of 29,200 people in part-time employment. Since December 2018, full-time employment increased by 152,700 people, while part-time employment increased by 109,900 people.

Seasonally adjusted monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 8.2 million hours (or 0.5%) in December 2019 to 1,791.1 million hours.

The seasonally adjusted employment to population ratio remained steady at 62.6% in December 2019, and increased by 0.3 pts since December 2018.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 pts to 5.1% in December 2019. The participation rate remained steady at 66.0%.
 

In December 2019, increases in employment were observed in most states and territories, notably Victoria (up 8,500 people), New South Wales (up 5,000 people) and Queensland (up 4,100 people). Decreases were recorded in South Australia (down 1,400 people), Western Australia (down 200 people), and the Australian Capital Territory (down 200 people).

Over the past year, increases in employment were observed in all states and territories. The largest increases were in Victoria (up 98,000 people), New South Wales (up 80,000 people), and Queensland (up 57,600 people). The highest annual employment growth rates were in the Australian Capital Territory at 3.3%, followed by Victoria and Tasmania at 2.9%. The annual trend employment growth rates in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory were above their respective 20 year average annual growth rates in trend employment.

The monthly trend unemployment rate increased by 0.1 pts in the Northern Territory (5.6%). The monthly trend unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 pts in Queensland (6.0%) and Tasmania (5.8%). All remaining states and the Australian Capital Territory recorded no change.

The monthly trend participation rate increased by 0.4 pts in the Northern Territory (75.1%), by 0.2 pts in Tasmania (61.1%), and by 0.1 pts in Victoria (66.5%). The monthly trend participation rate decreased by 0.2 pts in the Australian Capital Territory (70.6%).

In December 2019, the largest increases in employment were recorded in New South Wales (up 20,600 people) and Victoria (up 10,300 people). The largest decrease was in Western Australia (down 5,300 people).

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased by 0.3 pts in Victoria (4.9%). The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased in all the other states with the largest falls in Queensland (down 0.6 pts to 5.7%) and Tasmania (down 0.5 pts to 5.5%).

The seasonally adjusted participation rate increased by 0.3 pts in Victoria (66.6%), and by 0.2 pts in New South Wales (65.5%). The seasonally adjusted participation rate decreased by 0.6 pts in Queensland (65.6%), by 0.5 pts in Western Australia (67.7%), by 0.3 pts in South Australia (62.5%) and by less than 0.1 pts in Tasmania (61.0%).

Seasonally adjusted estimates are not published for the two territories.

Bushfires resulted in disruption to data collection activities during December 2019 in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. In most cases data for December could still be collected during the latter stages of the enumeration period, which was completed before the Christmas period. Quality assurance undertaken by the ABS confirmed that these disruptions did not result in any impacts to Labour Force statistics. Other bushfires around the country had no impact on enumeration activities this month.

Looking ahead to January, the disruption to enumeration activities has increased with the increasing severity of bushfires and their major impact on the affected communities, particularly in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. The ABS anticipates some localised impacts to the sample in particular regional areas and will undertake additional quality assurance to ensure that any impact on state and national estimates is minimised. For a recent example of where the ABS has undertaken quality assurance around a major disaster, please refer to ‘Impact of Townsville Floods in February 2019’.

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.

The Labour Force Survey sample can be thought of as comprising eight sub-samples (or rotation groups), with each sub-sample remaining in the survey for eight months, and one rotation group "rotating out" each month and being replaced by a new group "rotating in". This sample rotation is important in ensuring that seven-eighths of the sample are common from one month to the next, to ensure that changes in the estimates reflect real changes in the labour market, rather than the sample. In addition, the replacement sample is generally selected from the same geographic areas as the outgoing one, as part of a representative sampling approach.

When considering movements in the original estimates, it is possible to decompose the sample into three components:

• the matched common sample (survey respondents who responded in both November and December);
• the unmatched common sample (survey respondents who responded in December but who did not respond in November, or vice versa); and
• the incoming rotation group (survey respondents who replaced respondents who rotated out in November).
   

The detailed decomposition of each of these movements is included in the data cube 'Insights From the Original Data'.

In considering the three components of the sample, it is important to remember that the matched common sample describes the change observed for the same respondents in November and December, while the other two components reflect differences between the aggregate labour force status of different groups of people.

While the rotation groups are designed to be representative of the population, the outgoing and incoming rotation groups will almost always have somewhat different characteristics, as a result of the groups representing a sample of different households and people. The design of the survey, including the weighting and estimation processes, ensures that these differences are generally relatively minor and seeks to ensure that differences in characteristics of rotation groups do not affect the representativeness of the survey and its estimates. Monthly estimates are always designed to be representative of their respective months, regardless of the relative contribution of the three components of the sample.

In original terms, the incoming rotation group in December 2019 had a higher employment to population ratio than the group it replaced (63.9% in December 2019, compared to 62.3% in November 2019), and was higher than the sample as a whole (63.2%). The incoming rotation group had a higher full-time employment to population ratio than the group it replaced (43.3% in December 2019, compared to 42.7% in November 2019), and was lower than the sample as a whole (43.4%).

The incoming rotation group had a higher unemployment rate than the group it replaced (5.3% in December 2019, compared to 4.9% in November 2019), and was higher than the sample as a whole (4.9%). The incoming rotation group had a higher participation rate than the group it replaced (67.4% in December 2019, compared to 65.5% in November 2019), and was higher than the sample as a whole (66.4%).

In looking ahead to the January 2020 estimates, in original terms, the outgoing rotation group in December 2019, that will be replaced by a new incoming rotation group in January 2020, had a higher employment to population ratio in December 2019 (64.2%) compared to the sample as a whole (63.2%). The outgoing rotation group in December 2019 had a higher full-time employment to population ratio (44.5%) compared to the sample as a whole (43.4%).

The outgoing rotation group in December 2019 had a lower unemployment rate (4.0%) compared to the sample as a whole (4.9%). The outgoing rotation group in December 2019 had a higher participation rate (66.9%) compared to the sample as a whole (66.4%).

As the gross flows and rotation group data are presented in original terms they are not directly comparable to the seasonally adjusted and trend data discussed elsewhere in the commentary, and are included to provide additional information for the original data. Since the original data are unadjusted, they have a considerable level of inherent sampling variability, which is specifically adjusted for in the trend series. The trend data provides the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market and is the focus of the commentary in this publication.

In addition to analysis across the entire sample, the ABS also undertakes similar analysis for the responding sample in each state and territory each month, and highlights where there is a notable change for users to be aware of. For example, in October 2019, the incoming rotation group in Victoria was more employed and less likely to be not in the labour force than the group it replaced, and was generally more employed and less not in the labour force than the matched sample. As with any notable month-to-month movement of this nature in state and territory estimates, the ABS recommends exercising a degree of caution in interpreting short-term changes.

As for its reporting for the entire sample, where the ABS has not highlighted a notable incoming rotation group effect, any larger changes should therefore be considered to reflect a broader change across the sample.

This section provides an archive of articles and analysis published in Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) and Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) and Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly (cat. no. 6291.0.55.003), promoting the effective use of labour force statistics. Articles are sorted by publication month.

Articles on labour related topics are also available in Australian Labour Market Statistics (cat. no. 6105.0) and Australian Social Trends (cat. no. 4102.0).

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.