Labour Account Australia

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The Australian Labour Account provides quarterly and annual time series for four quadrants: Jobs, People, Hours and Payments

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Reference period
March 2024
Released
7/06/2024
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Key statistics

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024:

  • total jobs increased 0.7% to 16.0 million
  • filled jobs increased 0.8% to 15.7 million
  • secondary jobs increased 1.3% to 1.11 million
  • proportion of vacant jobs decreased to 2.3%
  • multiple job-holders increased 1.2% to 974,000
  • hours worked increased 0.1% to 5.8 billion hours.
Key statistics - Seasonally adjusted
  Mar-24Quarterly change (%)Annual change (%)
Jobs    
 Total jobs16,030,5000.7%1.8%
 Filled jobs15,664,9000.8%2.4%
 Job vacancies365,500-4.3%-17.4%
 Main jobs14,558,8000.8%2.2%
 Secondary jobs1,106,2001.3%4.4%
 Proportion of vacant jobs2.3%nana
People    
 Employed people14,561,1000.7%2.2%
 Multiple job holders974,0001.2%2.9%
 Multiple job holding rate6.7%nana
Hours    
 Hours actually worked5,848.1 million0.1%1.1%
Payments    
 Average income per employed person$23,852.800.6%3.9%
Key statistics - Trend (a)
  Mar-24Quarterly change (%)Annual change (%)
Jobs    
 Total jobs16,022,6000.7%2.2%
 Filled jobs15,654,3000.8%2.8%
 Job vacancies368,300-4.4%-16.3%
 Main jobs14,550,0000.8%2.6%
 Secondary jobs1,104,3000.7%5.0%
 Proportion of vacant jobs2.3%nana
People    
 Employed people14,550,7000.6%2.3%
 Multiple job holders970,6000.4%2.5%
 Multiple job holding rate6.7%nana
Hours    
 Hours actually worked5,852.4 million0.1%0.8%

a. The ABS will reinstate trend estimates in the Payments quadrant in the June quarter 2024 release on 6 September 2024. For more information, see Data Impacts and changes.
 

Labour Force statistics estimation improvements

As part of ongoing improvements to the estimation method for Labour Force statistics, the ABS implemented some minor changes to how it accounts for relatively small population groups within the sample in the February 2024 Labour Force release on 21 March 2024. 

Revisions from this change are reflected in corresponding time series revisions to the Labour Account in this release. For more information, see Revisions this quarter.

Spotlight on the Labour Account

This release includes an article providing information on the Labour Account, its benefits and how it can be used to draw unique labour market insights (see Spotlight on the Labour Account).

Guide to labour statistics

To learn more about our different labour measures, their purpose and how to use them, see our Guide to labour statistics. It provides summary information on labour market topics including Industry employment data.

Data impacts and changes

Revisions this quarter

Seasonal adjustment and trend estimates

Changes to release page

Jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024:

  • filled jobs increased by 0.8%, following a 0.4% rise in the December quarter 2023, and 2.4% through the year
  • the number of main jobs increased by 109,100 (0.8%)
  • the proportion of vacant jobs decreased to 2.3%
  • the number of public sector jobs increased by 1.8%, while the number of private sector jobs increased by 0.2%.

Total jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024, the total number of jobs increased by 107,500 (0.7%). This consisted of an increase of 123,800 filled jobs and a decrease of 16,300 job vacancies.

Filled jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024, the number of filled jobs increased by 123,800 to 15.7 million.

  1. Larger than usual quarter-to-quarter changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period.
Filled jobs, by industry, March quarter 2024, seasonally adjusted
Filled jobs ('000)Quarterly change (%)Annual change (%)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing (A)477.31.61.8
Mining (B)223.71.89.1
Manufacturing (C)900.20.11.4
Electricity, gas, water and waste services (D)136.3-2.71.6
Construction (E)1,233.50.83.0
Wholesale trade (F)615.0-0.6-3.3
Retail trade (G)1,455.70.2-2.2
Accommodation and food services (H)1,082.4-1.6-10.5
Transport, postal and warehousing (I)724.8-2.90.2
Information media and telecommunications (J)212.42.13.3
Financial and insurance services (K)518.40.60.7
Rental, hiring and real estate services (L)321.91.42.8
Professional, scientific and technical services (M)1,235.6-2.04.5
Administrative and support services (N)1,057.72.14.2
Public administration and safety (O)859.92.84.8
Education and training (P)1,282.31.46.0
Health care and social assistance (Q)2,450.33.78.5
Arts and recreation services (R)306.43.016.4
Other services (S)571.00.01.3
Total all industries15,664.90.82.4

Main and secondary jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024:

  • main jobs increased by 109,100 (0.8%)
  • secondary jobs increased by 14,700 (1.3%)
  • the proportion of secondary jobs to filled jobs increased to 7.1%.

The three industries with the highest number of secondary jobs were Health care and social assistance, Administrative and support services, and Education and training.

Secondary jobs can be held by people who have their main job in the same or a different industry. 

Statistical discrepancy - Filled jobs

People

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024:

  • the total number of employed people increased by 0.7% to 14.6 million
  • the number of multiple job-holders increased by 1.2%
  • unemployed people decreased by 11,000 people to 571,200.
  1. Larger than usual quarter-to-quarter changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period.

The three industries with the highest number of employed people in the March quarter 2024 were Health care and social assistance, Retail trade, and Education and training.

Hours

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024, the total number of hours actually worked increased by 6.6 million hours (0.1%) to 5.8 billion hours.

  1. Larger than usual quarter-to-quarter changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period.

The three industries with the highest number of hours actually worked in the March quarter 2024 were Health care and social assistance, Construction, and Professional, scientific and technical services.

Payments

The Labour Account Payments quadrant presents the costs incurred by enterprises in employing labour, and the income received by people from its provision. Total income consists of compensation of employees and labour income from self-employment. The addition of other related costs to employers to total income will derive total labour costs.

In seasonally adjusted terms, in the March quarter 2024:

  • total labour income increased by $4,436 million (1.3%) to $347,322 million
  • the average labour income per employed person increased by 0.6% to $23,853
  • total compensation of employees increased by 1.1% to $319,080 million
  • labour income from self-employment increased by 3.2% to $28,242 million
  • total labour costs increased by $4,683 million (1.3%) to $369,173 million. 

The three industries with the highest total labour income in the March quarter 2024 were Health care and social assistance, Professional, scientific and technical services, and Construction.

Data downloads

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Time series spreadsheets

Quarterly estimates for Jobs, People, Hours and Payments by Industry Division and Total All Industries.

Data files

Subdivison datasets

Industry subdivision estimates are available through Data Explorer.

Data Explorer datasets

Quarterly original estimates for Jobs, People, Hours and Payments by Industry Subdivision, Division and Total All Industries.

Labour Account balanced - Balanced quarterly original estimates for Jobs, People, Hours and Payments by Industry Subdivision, Division and Total All Industries.

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

Seasonal adjustment for leap years

The extra leap year day in 2024 has been accounted for in seasonally adjusted statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for the month of February 2024 and the March quarter 2024.  The impact of an additional leap year day is analysed as part of the seasonal adjustment process, which includes the impact of trading days. The impact of the extra leap year day will be evident in the original (non-seasonally adjusted) series. For further information please refer to this note: Accounting for the extra leap year day in ABS seasonally adjusted statistics.

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Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6150.0.55.003.

Methodology

Labour Account Australia methodology, March 2024

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