Labour statistics recent and upcoming developments

This page provides an overview of recent and upcoming developments in the ABS Labour Statistics Program, including information on the many changes and developments, and emerging priorities, that will help shape labour statistics into the future.

It starts with a quick overview of additional work to address priority labour market data gaps (which was funded by the Australian Government following the release of the Working Future White Paper), and then provides updates on a range of current work and recent releases of interest.

Like the rest of the Guide to labour statistics, this page will be a 'living document' which is updated periodically, to provide a contemporary reference on progress and priorities within the program.

If you have any questions, would like further information on any of the updates, or would like to provide feedback on the usefulness or content of this page, please contact us via labour.statistics@abs.gov.au.

Following the release of Working Future: The Australian Government’s White Paper on Jobs and Opportunities on 25 September 2023, the ABS received investment to address priority labour market data gaps. 

This additional investment in the labour statistics program builds on earlier funding ABS received to either address gaps (e.g. measuring digital platform workers), increase the frequency of our statistics (e.g. annual barriers and incentives data, complemented by quarterly indicators), or to improve the quality of existing statistics (e.g. enhanced regional labour force data).

The priority data gaps funded through the White paper, and associated work, are:

Enhancing data on employment outcomes and barriers

• Linking the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to relevant administrative data (such as employment services and income support data) in the Person Linked Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA)
• Producing new summary statistics and insights, including some longitudinal analysis, using the linked LFS-PLIDA data and the existing Longitudinal LFS
• Producing a LFS TableBuilder product, which will eventually be released monthly

Labour Household Survey content modernisation

• Collecting more survey data – and producing new statistics – related to quality of employment, job security, barriers to job mobility and career progression, and additional insights into people who are not employed
• Producing an integrated suite of monthly underutilisation measures (u-series)
• Addressing legacy collection issues and limitations

Expanding the Labour Account to measure unpaid care and add demographic breakdowns

• Improving the data available on the amount (hours) and estimated monetary value of unpaid care through an expansion to the Labour Account, to ensure its contribution to society and the economy is more visible alongside paid work
• Adding new estimates of sex and age to the existing Labour Account data, to provide a meaningful point of comparison between paid work and unpaid care
• An Information paper with further detail will be published later in 2024

Consulting with First Nations people on more frequent employment data

• Consulting with First Nations people on more frequent employment data requirements and potential solutions

• New monthly modelled LFS SA4 level estimates were released on 2 May 2024 in the detailed release, along with a new guide to regional labour market data.
• An Information paper with plans for adding sex and age breakdowns to the SA4 data, and producing data below the SA4 level, will be published in late June 2024.

• An article on seasonal adjustment and changing seasonality in labour force statistics was published with the April LFS release. This builds on information included in the January 2024 release and in other ABS releases, such as Retail trade statistics.
• Improvements to Labour Force estimation were implemented with the February 2024 release to better account for difficult to enumerate parts of the sample (around 2% of the sample).
• Major rebenchmarking of estimates to the final Estimated Resident Population after 2021 Census has been completed.
• Experimental estimates of households and average household size were added to the 2023 Labour Force Status of Families release.

• A Spotlight on the Labour Account was included in the March quarter Labour Account release. It provides information about the Labour Account, its benefits and how it can be used to draw unique insights.
• Trend estimates were reinstated in the Jobs, People and Hours quadrants of the Labour Account for the September quarter 2023. Trend estimates will be reinstated in the Payments quadrant in the June quarter 2024.
• Indicative state estimates for jobs and hours worked have been released again, with hours worked estimates included for the first time. This demonstrates potential for future disaggregation of the Labour Account, with additional data and investment.
• The Labour Account-based Multiple job-holders multi-source release is now published quarterly, alongside the Labour Account.
• The second issue of the Labour Account-based Labour hire workers release was published in January 2024 (for June 2023). The next release will be in September 2024 (for June 2024) before we transition to a regular annual release in April each year.

• Weekly Payroll Jobs will be transitioning to a quarterly release in the short term, to enable us to redirect some resources toward improved and new labour market products and expanding the use of STP data in ABS labour statistics. The final monthly release will be on 11 July 2024. The time between the final payroll period and the release date will be extended to take advantage of more complete STP reporting.
• Employer characteristics in Weekly Payroll Jobs indexes were updated with the release in March 2024. We are developing a roadmap for how to move from these summary indexes of STP-reported jobs to level estimates of employee jobs.
• The May 2024 release of Monthly Employee Earnings Indicator included further enhancements to the way we use Single Touch Payroll data to produce level estimates and movements. We are working towards quarterly releases in the near future.
• Public Sector Employment and Earnings has been released using Single Touch Payroll data, replacing the previous survey-based estimates. The initial release in November 2023 included STP and survey comparisons.

• During 2022-23, we commenced collecting (annual) information on digital platform work from the outgoing rotation group of the LFS (in the Multi-Purpose Household Survey).
• The first data on digital platform workers was released in an article in late 2023, with summary data also included in Working Arrangements.

• During 2022-23, we collected additional information from casual employees who had been with their employer for 12 months or more from the outgoing rotation group of the LFS (the Multi-Purpose Household Survey) on their desire to change from a casual to non-casual employment.
• The first data from the survey on transitioning from casual to non-casual employment were released in Working Arrangements in late 2023.

• Characteristics of Employment data for August 2023 was released in TableBuilder and DataLab in March 2024.
• Jobs and Income of Employed Persons data for 2020-21 was released in TableBuilder in March 2024.
• Employee Earnings and Hours data for May 2023 was released in TableBuilder in May 2024 (and will be released in DataLab in June 2024).
• In the last few years we have had some unfortunate delays to our TableBuilder releases, due to a focus on Census outputs and the need to implement some important technical updates to the TableBuilder environment. We are now aiming to progressively return to a more regular and timely TableBuilder release schedule.

• A comprehensive review of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) is progressing well and will be completed by the end of 2024.
• The ANZSCO review is expected to include some information on our implementation plans for labour statistics, including considerations around backcasting the LFS time series.

• The Gender pay gap guide is now being updated every six months with new gender pay gap data, along with the corresponding data in the Gender Indicators release, to coincide with the release of Average Weekly Earnings data.

• Data on the use of restraint clauses in employment contracts (e.g. non-compete clauses) was released in February 2024. 
• This data, along with the regular data collected in the Employee Earnings and Hours survey, is now also available within the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE).

• Trend estimates were reinstated in the May 2023 release of Job Vacancies.
• From the November 2023 release of Job Vacancies, the contribution from micro-employers (those with 0-4 employees) is being modelled in seven of eight quarters.

• Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods was updated in November 2023, as part of a new approach to smaller scale but more frequent maintenance updates.