Weekly Payroll Jobs

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Payroll job estimates, sourced from Single Touch Payroll (STP) data

Reference period
Week ending 13 April 2024
Released
9/05/2024

Key statistics

In the week ending 13 April 2024, payroll jobs:

  •  decreased by 0.6% in the month since 16 March 2024
  •  increased by 2.3% in the year since 15 April 2023

Factors affecting interpretation

Revisions

Change periods

National

In the month to 13 April 2024, payroll jobs decreased by 0.6%, compared to an increase of 0.5% in the previous month.

  1. Indexed to the week ending 14 March 2020 (week 10 in 2020).
  2. Week 0 represents the weeks ending 4 January 2020, 2 January 2021, 1 January 2022, 31 December 2022 and 30 December 2023. Week 15 represents the weeks ending 18 April 2020, 17 April 2021, 16 April 2022, 15 April 2023 and 13 April 2024.
  3. Around the change in financial years estimates see a greater variation in business payroll reporting. For more information, see the Data variability and revisions section. 

 

Estimates of change throughout this release are calculated using un-rounded index values. They may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from the rounded index values.

State and territory

All geographical areas in this release represent the residential address of the jobholder. 

In the month to 13 April 2024, the largest changes in payroll jobs were:

  • Victoria, down 0.9%
  • New South Wales and Queensland, down 0.7%
Percentage change in payroll jobs, by state and territory
Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
New South Wales-0.2-0.71.8
Victoria-0.6-0.91.9
Queensland-0.1-0.72.2
South Australia0.10.03.0
Western Australia-0.2-0.43.7
Tasmania0.0-0.22.4
Northern Territory0.2-0.24.3
Australian Capital Territory0.0-0.32.9
Australia-0.3-0.62.3

Monthly percentage change in payroll jobs, by state and territory

Loading map...

This map presents the percentage change in payroll jobs in the month up to 13 April 2024, by the state and territory of the jobholder's residential address. 

Sex and age group

Updating of jobholder characteristics including sex and age is no longer possible on the current Weekly Payroll Jobs systems and processes. Users are advised that the accuracy of sex in particular will be affected by a growing proportion of 'unknowns'. See Jobholder characteristics in How the data are processed for more information. 

As at 13 April 2024, the proportion of jobholders with unknown sex has risen to 9.2%. These jobholders are not evenly distributed, hence this proportion differs across detailed indexes which include sex, and can affect comparisons over time. When persons join the workforce or register with the ATO for the first time, the ABS assigns STP records whose jobholder characteristics cannot be determined to an ‘unknown’ category for the relevant jobholder characteristics including sex (with an unknown sex not to be confused with people choosing to report a sex other than male or female). Indexes of persons aged 15-19 years old by sex are particularly impacted by rising proportions of unknown sex due to the high likelihood of persons in this age group registering with the ATO for the first time. The indexes of persons aged 15-19 years old by sex have been withdrawn since the 11 May 2023 release, and users are advised to consider the declining quality of the indexes of persons aged 20-29 years old by sex. 

In the month to 13 April 2024, the largest changes in payroll jobs were:

  • worked by males, down 0.7%
  • worked by persons aged 15-19, down 2.1%
Percentage change in payroll jobs, by sex and age group (a)
  Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
SexMales-0.3-0.7-2.2
Females-0.4-0.70.0
Age group (years)15-19-0.8-2.1-3.9
20-29-0.2-0.62.3
30-39-0.3-0.52.9
40-49-0.3-0.62.9
50-59-0.2-0.51.4
60-690.2-0.44.8
70 and over0.1-0.38.2
All persons -0.3-0.62.3

a. Persons with 'unknown' sex and age are only included in the calculation of All persons indexes. For more information, see Inclusion of unknown characteristics in How data are processed.

5 year age groups

Time series estimates of payroll jobs by 5 year age groups by sex are presented as index values in Table 8 of the Data downloads.

Industry

In the month to 13 April 2024, the largest changes in payroll jobs were:

  • Other services, down 2.9%
  • Arts and recreation services, down 1.9%
Percentage change in payroll jobs, by industry (a) (b)
Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing-0.3-0.9-0.8
Mining0.10.26.7
Manufacturing0.0-0.72.7
Electricity, gas, water and waste services-0.1-0.39.8
Construction0.0-0.22.0
Wholesale trade-0.5-1.52.1
Retail trade0.0-0.42.0
Accommodation and food services0.1-1.31.4
Transport, postal and warehousing-0.2-0.62.7
Information media and telecommunications-0.1-1.6-1.8
Financial and insurance services0.0-0.42.8
Rental, hiring and real estate services-0.2-0.72.0
Professional, scientific and technical services0.0-0.40.4
Administrative and support services-0.8-1.63.2
Public administration and safety0.2-0.27.0
Education and training-0.7-0.68.3
Health care and social assistance-0.4-0.18.9
Arts and recreation services-0.6-1.94.6
Other services-1.8-2.91.3
All industries-0.3-0.62.3
  1. Some industries experience pronounced seasonality in payroll jobs. For more information, see Seasonality in Data variability and revisions.
  2. Jobs with 'unknown' industry are only included in the calculation of all industry indexes. For more information, see Inclusion of unknown characteristics in How data are processed.
  1. Industries ranked by percentage change in the latest month.

Industry subdivision

Time series estimates of payroll jobs by industry subdivision are presented as index values in Table 6 of the Data downloads. For more information on the industry classifications used in this release, see the Glossary

Private sector industry

Time series estimates of payroll jobs by private sector for selected industry divisions are presented as index values in Table 9 of the Data downloads. More information on the sector classification can be found in Updating characteristics variables in How data are processed and the Glossary

Industry employment guide

To learn more about the different labour measures available, their purpose and how to use them, see our Industry employment guide.

Employment size

The ABS advises caution in using the most recent periods in payroll jobs by employment size indexes, which are subject to higher than usual revisions over a longer period - particularly for small employers. These indexes are more heavily influenced by changes in reporting behaviour and reporting obligations than other indexes, affecting the interpretation of underlying change in labour market conditions. To provide more stability at the end point of these series, a month lag in the reference week is in place. 

This release presents percentage change between the weeks ending 16 March 2024 and:

  • 02 March 2024, for fortnight
  • 17 February 2024, for month
  • 18 March 2023, for year

In the month to 16 March 2024, the largest changes in payroll jobs were:

  • 200 employees and over, up 1.0%
Percentage change in payroll jobs by employment size, for the week ending 16 March 2024 (a) (b)
Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
0-19 employees-0.3-0.1-14.8
20-199 employees0.00.18.6
200 employees and over0.61.08.9
All businesses0.20.52.0
  1. Records with 'unknown' employment size are only included in the calculation of All businesses indexes. For more information, see Revisions in sub-populations in Data variability and revisions
  2. The monthly and annual changes should be used with caution given they cross the 'transition point' of the update to employer characteristics. For more information, see the Update of employer characteristics section of the Methodology. 

Distribution of characteristics

To aid in the interpretability of payroll job estimates, the following data download contains selected distributions of jobholder and employer characteristics by state and territory. 

Records with 'unknown' characteristics have been excluded from the calculation of proportions. For more information on the source, impact and proportion of unknowns, see the Updating characteristic variables and Inclusion of unknown characteristics sections of How data are processed

Table 20: Payroll jobs - characteristics distributions

Contains selected distributions of jobholder and employer characteristics. 

Data downloads

The source of employer characteristics - industry, employment size and sector - are periodically updated. The date at which employer characteristics are updated are called 'transition points'. Users should always exercise caution when comparing week-on-week changes and index levels across transition points - the latest being the week ending 30 December 2023. For more information on employer characteristics updates and transition points, see the Update of employer characteristics section of the Methodology.

Due to the rising proportion of unknown sex, indexes of persons aged 15-19 years old by sex have been withdrawn (since the 11 May 2023 release) and appear as NA (not available) in Tables 4 and 8. Users are advised to consider the decline in accuracy when interpreting the indexes of persons aged 20-29 years old by sex due to the increasing proportion of jobholders with an unknown sex in this age group. For more information see the Sex and age group section.

Table 4: Payroll jobs indexes

Table 6: Industry subdivision - Payroll jobs indexes

Table 7: Employer characteristics - Payroll jobs index

Table 8: Jobholder characteristics - Payroll jobs index

Table 9: Sector - Payroll jobs index

All data cubes

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6160.0.55.001.

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