Weekly Payroll Jobs

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

Reference period
Week ending 11 May 2024
Released
6/06/2024

Key statistics

In the week ending 11 May 2024, payroll jobs:

  •  increased by 0.1% in the month since 13 April 2024
  •  increased by 1.2% in the year since 13 May 2023

Weekly Payroll Jobs will transition to a quarterly release frequency following the monthly release in July 2024. See Upcoming changes in this release for more information.

Factors affecting interpretation

Revisions

Change periods

National

In the month to 11 May 2024, payroll jobs increased by 0.1%, compared to a decrease of 1.0% 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 19 represents the weeks ending 16 May 2020, 15 May 2021, 14 May 2022, 13 May 2023 and 11 May 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 11 May 2024, the largest changes in payroll jobs were:

  • Northern Territory and Victoria, up 0.5%
  • Queensland, up 0.3%
  • New South Wales, down 0.3%
Percentage change in payroll jobs, by state and territory
Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
New South Wales0.1-0.30.7
Victoria0.00.51.1
Queensland0.10.30.9
South Australia0.1-0.12.5
Western Australia0.00.12.5
Tasmania0.2-0.21.4
Northern Territory0.00.52.9
Australian Capital Territory0.40.01.9
Australia0.10.11.2

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 11 May 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 indexes 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 11 May 2024, the proportion of jobholders with unknown sex has risen to 9.4%. 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 11 May 2024, the largest changes in payroll jobs were:

  • worked by persons aged 70 and over, up 0.9%
Percentage change in payroll jobs, by sex and age group (a)
  Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
SexMales-0.1-0.4-2.9
Females0.20.4-1.1
Age group (years)15-19-0.60.0-5.0
20-290.0-0.11.1
30-390.10.01.9
40-490.10.21.8
50-590.10.20.7
60-690.50.43.6
70 and over0.80.95.6
All persons 0.10.11.2

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 11 May 2024, the largest changes in payroll jobs were:

  • Agriculture, forestry and fishing, down 3.7%
  • Education and training, up 3.4%
Percentage change in payroll jobs, by industry (a) (b)
Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing-1.9-3.7-2.7
Mining-0.2-0.35.5
Manufacturing0.0-0.51.7
Electricity, gas, water and waste services0.00.08.9
Construction0.0-0.61.3
Wholesale trade0.00.12.6
Retail trade-0.5-0.31.7
Accommodation and food services0.00.00.6
Transport, postal and warehousing0.0-0.11.5
Information media and telecommunications-0.5-0.8-1.3
Financial and insurance services0.0-0.12.6
Rental, hiring and real estate services-0.1-0.11.0
Professional, scientific and technical services0.00.0-0.2
Administrative and support services-0.1-1.41.3
Public administration and safety0.20.25.3
Education and training1.53.44.9
Health care and social assistance0.10.28.0
Arts and recreation services-1.0-0.62.4
Other services-0.10.01.4
All industries0.10.11.2
  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 13 April 2024 and:

  • 30 March 2024, for fortnight
  • 16 March 2024, for month
  • 15 April 2023, for year

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

  • 0-19 employees, down 2.3%
Percentage change in payroll jobs by employment size, for the week ending 13 April 2024 (a) (b)
Fortnight (%)Month (%)Year (%)
0-19 employees-1.3-2.3-13.7
20-199 employees-0.2-1.29.1
200 employees and over-0.1-0.38.7
All businesses-0.4-1.02.4
  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

Employer characteristics, including industry, employment size, and sector, are periodically updated. These updates are referred to as ‘transition points.’ Users should always exercise caution when comparing index levels across transition points. The most recent transition point was the week ending 30 December, 2023. For further details, refer to the Update of employer characteristics section in 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

Upcoming changes

Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages formed an important part of a suite of additional products the ABS produced to provide valuable insights into the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Australian society and economy. 

Now that Australia has a more stable labour market, Weekly Payroll Jobs will move to a quarterly release schedule with a final monthly release on 11 July 2024. In addition, the ABS will extend the time between the final payroll period and the release date to take advantage of more complete STP reporting. This will provide a more definitive picture of change in the labour market from this powerful new data.

These changes will allow for the redirection of resources toward improved and new labour market products and expanding the use of STP data in ABS labour statistics. 
Further information on these changes, including the date of the first quarterly release, will be provided in the 11 July 2024 release.

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6160.0.55.001.

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