ABS additional information about July 2014 unemployment rate increase
The ABS has not changed the definition of unemployment. To be counted as unemployed, a person will have not worked for one hour or more for pay or profit in the reference week, will be actively looking and available for work. The changes introduced in July 2014 did not change this definition.
In July 2014 the ABS refined some of the questions used to determine if a person is actively looking for work. From time to time the ABS updates these questions to ensure alignment with international standards and to reflect the changing way that people look for work in Australia. For details of the changes made in July see 6202.0 - Labour Force, Australia, Jul 2014
There is no evidence that these changes had a significant impact on the July 2014 estimates of unemployed persons.
Separate to refining these questions, the ABS changed the measurement of the duration of a person’s period of unemployment. This change only applies to those persons already identified as unemployed and did not impact on the number of unemployed persons.
Previously, the duration of a person’s period of unemployment could only end with a spell of work of two weeks or more. This was inconsistent with the definition of unemployment. From July 2014 the ABS will ask when a person last worked. This is both consistent with the definition of employment and unemployment as well as international standards. The data impacted by this change is only released quarterly and the ABS will release duration of unemployment data according to the new definition on 14 August 2014.