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Labour Force, Australia

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Headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked from the monthly Labour Force Survey

Reference period
December 2021
Released
20/01/2022

Key statistics

Seasonally adjusted estimates for December 2021:

  • Unemployment rate decreased to 4.2%.
  • Participation rate remained at 66.1%.
  • Employment increased to 13,242,000.
  • Employment to population ratio increased to 63.3%.
  • Underemployment rate decreased to 6.6%.
  • Monthly hours worked increased by 18 million hours.
Nov-2021Dec-2021Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Seasonally adjusted
Employed people13,177,30013,242,00064,8000.5%375,9002.9%
Unemployed people636,700574,400-62,200-9.8%-331,500-36.6%
Unemployment rate4.6%4.2%-0.5 ptsna-2.4 ptsna
Underemployment rate7.5%6.6%-0.8 ptsna-1.9 ptsna
Participation rate66.1%66.1%0.0 ptsna0.0 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs 1,801 million 1,819 million18 million1.0%65 million3.7%

Estimates of changes throughout this release are calculated using un-rounded level estimates and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from the rounded level estimates.

Survey impacts and changes

Hours worked - insights and additional data

The ABS is continuing to publish additional insights into hours worked each month. The ABS is also continuing to include data cubes EM2a and EM2b in this release.

These two data cubes are usually only released in Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, but will continue to be released in the headline release over the coming months, to enable more detailed analysis of changes in hours worked and the reasons that people are working reduced or no hours. 

People outside of employment with job attachment

Seasonal adjustment and trend estimates

Survey response and timeline

Articles and other information

This months Labour Force release includes:

For a list of previously published LFS articles, see the Article archive.

Additional spreadsheets and pivot tables are published in Labour Force, Australia, Detailed one week after this release, while longitudinal labour force microdata are released in the ABS DataLab, on the 28 January 2022 (see Microdata: Longitudinal Labour Force, Australia).

Unemployment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in December 2021:

  • The unemployment rate decreased by 0.5 pts to 4.2%
  • The unemployment rate was 1.1 pts below March 2020
  • Unemployed people decreased by 62,200 to 574,400 
  • Unemployed people was 148,800 lower than March 2020
  • The youth unemployment rate decreased by 1.5 pts to 9.4%
  • The youth unemployment rate was 2.2 pts lower than March 2020

Employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in December 2021:

  • Employment increased by 64,800 people (0.5%) to 13,242,000 people
  • Employment was 246,600 people (1.9%) higher than March 2020

 

Flows into and out of employment

Full-time and part-time employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in December 2021:

  • Full-time employment increased by 41,500 to 9,094,400 people, and part-time employment increased by 23,300 to 4,147,700 people
  • The part-time share of employment was 31.3%, 0.5 pts lower than in March 2020

 

Employment-to-population ratio

In seasonally adjusted terms, in December 2021, the employment-to-population ratio:

  • Increased by 0.3 pts to 63.3%
  • Higher than March 2020 by 1.0 pts

The employment-to-population ratio provides a measure of employment relative to the size of the population.

Hours worked

In seasonally adjusted terms, in December 2021, monthly hours worked in all jobs:

  • ​​​​​Increased by 18.2 million hours (1.0%) to 1,819 million hours
  • Increased by 53.9 million hours (3.1%) from March 2020 

See the article Insights into hours worked for more.

Participation

In seasonally adjusted terms, in December 2021, the participation rate:

  • Remained at 66.1%

  • Increased by 0.1 pts for men to 70.8% and decreased by 0.1 pts to 61.5% for women

  • Higher than March 2020 by 0.2 pts

Underemployment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in December 2021:

  • The underemployment rate decreased by 0.8 pts to 6.6%
  • The underemployment rate was 2.2 pts lower than March 2020 
  • The underutilisation rate decreased by 1.3 pts to 10.8%

States and territories

December 2021, Seasonally adjusted
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaNorthern TerritoryAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
Employed people4,160,0003,471,3002,666,600882,6001,443,200260,500131,500227,10013,242,000
Employed people - monthly change0.8%0.7%0.2%-0.2%-0.1%-0.4%1.3%-0.3%0.5%
Employment to population ratio62.4%64.1%63.1%60.4%66.7%58.1%69.4%66.1%63.3%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change0.5 pts0.5 pts0.1 pts-0.1 pts-0.1 pts-0.2 pts0.9 pts-0.2 pts0.3 pts
Unemployment rate4.0%4.2%4.7%3.9%3.4%3.9%4.2%4.5%4.2%
Unemployment rate - monthly change-0.6 pts-0.5 pts-0.1 pts-0.7 pts-0.4 pts-1.2 pts-0.2 pts0.7 pts-0.5 pts
Underemployment rate6.3%6.4%7.6%8.6%6.4%8.1%5.9%5.0%6.6%
Underemployment rate - monthly change-1.1 pts-0.9 pts-0.3 pts0.5 pts-0.1 pts-0.3 pts0.5 pts-2.2 pts-0.8 pts
Participation rate65.0%66.9%66.2%62.9%69.0%60.4%72.4%69.2%66.1%
Participation rate - monthly change0.1 pts0.2 pts0.0 pts-0.6 pts-0.3 pts-1.0 pts0.8 pts0.3 pts0.0 pts

Rotation group analysis

Sample composition and rotation

Estimates for the incoming and outgoing rotation groups

States and territories

Managing COVID-19 impacts on incoming rotation groups

Comparability with seasonally adjusted data

Contribution from sample components to estimates

Data downloads

Changes to Excel file format on the ABS website

In line with updating to more recent technology formats, the ABS will progressively transition to releasing Excel files in the .XLSX format. This means that timeseries spreadsheets in the suite of labour statistics releases will be progressively upgraded from .XLS files to .XLSX files.

While this change will improve usability, it may also require changes to automated macros or similar programs that users may have in place that call on the current file extension format.

Changes will be reflected in other labour statistics from the following dates:

  • Average Weekly Earnings, to be released on 24 February 2022
  • Labour Account, to be released on 9 March 2022
  • Industrial Disputes, to be released on 10 March 2022

Some labour statistics, such as Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages in Australia, already publish Excel data in .XLSX format. No changes will be required for those releases.

Labour Force Survey results are released in three stages.

  1. Spreadsheets of the headline indicators are published in this release
  2. Additional, more detailed spreadsheets and pivot tables are published in Labour Force, Australia, Detailed one week after this first release
  3. Longitudinal labour force microdata are released in the ABS DataLab on a monthly basis, one day after the detailed release (see Microdata: Longitudinal Labour Force, Australia)

See the Survey output section of Labour Force, Australia methodology for more information.

Labour Force status

Data files

Hours worked

Data files

Underemployment and underutilisation

Data files

Flows into and out of employment

GM1 - Labour force status and Gross changes (flows) by Age, Sex, State and Territory, February 1991 onwards

All time series spreadsheets

All time series spreadsheets


 

Data Explorer datasets

Caution: Data in the Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the time period when using Data Explorer.

For information on Data Explorer and how it works, see the Data Explorer user guide.

Labour force status by Sex, State and Territory - Number of people employed, unemployed and not in the labour force, monthly, February 1978 and onwards

Article archive

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6202.0.

Post release changes

02/02/2021 - following the release on 20/01/2021, there has been an update to the participation section- Participation rate for women was amended from 61.3% to 61.5%. No other data has been affected. 
 

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