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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
June 2021
Released
15/07/2021

Key statistics

Seasonally adjusted estimates for June 2021:

  • Unemployment rate decreased to 4.9%.
  • Participation rate remained at 66.2%.
  • Employment increased to 13,154,200.
  • Employment to population ratio increased to 63.0%.
  • Underemployment rate increased to 7.9%.
  • Monthly hours worked decreased by 33 million hours.
May-21Jun-21Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Seasonally adjusted
Employed people13,125,10013,154,20029,1000.2%777,9006.3%
Unemployed people701,100679,100-22,000-3.1%-303,700-30.9%
Unemployment rate5.1%4.9%-0.2 ptsna-2.4 ptsna
Underemployment rate7.4%7.9%0.5 ptsna-3.7 ptsna
Participation rate66.2%66.2%0.0 ptsna2.1 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs 1,814 million 1,781 million-33 million-1.8%114 million6.8%

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

Understanding differences between the Labour Force Survey and the Labour Account

Seasonal adjustment and trend estimates

Survey response and timeline

October 2021 Labour Force statistics will be released on 11 November

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, one day after the detailed release (see Microdata: Longitudinal Labour Force, Australia).

Unemployment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in June 2021:

  • The unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 pts to 4.9%
  • The unemployment rate was 2.4 pts lower than June 2020, and 0.4 pts lower than March 2020
  • Unemployed people decreased by 22,000 to 679,100 
  • Unemployed people decreased by 303,700 from June 2020 and was 44,400 lower than March 2020
  • The youth unemployment rate decreased by 0.5 pts to 10.2%
  • The youth unemployment rate was 6.1 pts lower than June 2020, and 1.4 pts lower than March 2020

Employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in June 2021:

  • Employment increased by 29,100 people (0.2%) to 13,154,200 people
  • Over the year to June 2021, employment increased by 777,900 people (6.3%)
  • Employment was 159,400 people (1.2%) higher than March 2020

Flows into and out of employment

Full-time and part-time employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in June 2021:

  • Full-time employment increased by 51,600 to 9,016,800 people, and part-time employment decreased by 22,500 to 4,137,400 people
  • Over the year to June 2021, full-time employment increased by 487,200 people and part-time employment increased by 290,700 people
  • The part-time share of employment was 31.5%, 0.3 pts lower than in March 2020 and 0.4 pts higher than this time last year.

 

Employment-to-population ratio

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

  • Increased by 0.1 pts to 63.0%
  • Increased by 3.6 pts from the same time last year, and was 0.6 pts higher than March 2020.

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

Hours worked

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

  • ​​​​​Decreased by 33.4 million hours (1.8%) to 1,781 million hours
  • Increased by 6.8% over the year, which is larger than the 6.3% increase in employed people
  • Increased 18.2 million hours (1.0%) from March 2020 

See the article Insights into hours worked for more.

Participation

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

  • Remained at 66.2%

  • Increased by 0.1 pts for men to 71.0% and decreased by 0.1 pts for women to 61.6%

  • Increased by 2.1 pts over the year to June 2021, and was 0.3 pts higher than March 2020

Underemployment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in June 2021:

  • The underemployment rate increased by 0.5 pts to 7.9%
  • The underemployment rate was 3.7 pts lower than June 2020, and 0.9 pts lower than March 2020 
  • The underutilisation rate increased by 0.3 pts to 12.8%

States and territories

June 2021, Seasonally adjusted
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaNorthern TerritoryAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
Employed people4,154,8003,444,5002,661,300866,6001,404,400262,200126,200232,30013,154,200
Employed people - monthly change-0.2%-0.3%0.6%-0.5%0.9%1.0%-3.9%-2.5%0.2%
Employment to population ratio62.6%63.2%63.3%59.3%65.1%58.4%66.4%67.4%63.0%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change-0.1 pts-0.2 pts0.3 pts-0.3 pts0.5 pts0.5 pts-2.8 pts-1.8 pts0.1 pts
Unemployment rate5.1%4.4%5.1%5.3%5.1%4.5%4.8%4.9%4.9%
Unemployment rate - monthly change0.0 pts-0.3 pts-0.3 pts-0.5 pts0.5 pts-1.2 pts0.3 pts1.3 pts-0.2 pts
Underemployment rate7.2%10.1%7.0%7.8%7.2%8.8%5.0%5.6%7.9%
Underemployment rate - monthly change-0.1 pts2.3 pts-0.7 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts-0.1 pts0.5 pts-0.2 pts0.5 pts
Participation rate65.9%66.1%66.7%62.6%68.7%61.1%69.7%70.8%66.2%
Participation rate - monthly change-0.1 pts-0.4 pts0.1 pts-0.7 pts0.9 pts-0.2 pts-2.7 pts-1.0 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 the incoming rotation groups

Comparability with seasonally adjusted data

Contribution from sample components to estimates

Data downloads

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

Article archive

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6202.0.

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