Labour Force, Australia

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Headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked from the monthly Labour Force Survey

Reference period
April 2021
Released
20/05/2021

Key statistics

Seasonally adjusted estimates for April 2021:

  • Unemployment rate decreased to 5.5%.
  • Participation rate decreased to 66.0%.
  • Employment decreased to 13,040,400.
  • Employment to population ratio decreased to 62.3%.
  • Underemployment rate decreased to 7.8%.
  • Monthly hours worked decreased by 13 million hours.
Mar-21Apr-21Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Seasonally adjusted
Employed people13,071,00013,040,400-30,600-0.2%637,9005.1%
Unemployed people789,900756,200-33,600-4.3%-89,100-10.5%
Unemployment rate5.7%5.5%-0.2 ptsna-0.9 ptsna
Underemployment rate8.0%7.8%-0.2 ptsna-5.9 ptsna
Participation rate66.3%66.0%-0.3 ptsna2.4 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs 1,806 million 1,793 million-13 million-0.7%200 million12.5%

Estimates of changes throughout this release are calculated using un-rounded level estimates and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from the rounded level estimates.

Survey impacts and changes

How the end of JobKeeper will be reflected in April and May Labour Force statistics

Seasonal adjustment and trend estimates

Survey response and timeline

October 2021 Labour Force statistics will be released on 11 November

Articles and other information

This months Labour Force release includes:

For a list of previously published LFS articles, see the Article archive.

Additional spreadsheets and pivot tables are published in Labour Force, Australia, Detailed one week after this release, while longitudinal labour force microdata are released in the ABS DataLab, one day after the detailed release (see Microdata: Longitudinal Labour Force, Australia).

Unemployment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2021:

  • The unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 5.5%
  • The unemployment rate was 0.9 pts lower than April 2020, and 0.2 pts higher than March 2020
  • Unemployed people decreased by 33,600 to 756,200
  • Unemployed people decreased by 89,100 from April 2020 and was 32,600 higher than March 2020
  • The youth unemployment rate decreased 1.1 pts to 10.6%
  • Youth unemployment was 3.4 pts lower than April 2020, and 1.0 pts lower than March 2020

Employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2021:

  • Employment decreased by 30,600 people (0.2%) to 13,040,400 people
  • Over the year to April 2021, employment increased by 637,900 people (5.1%)
  • Employment was 45,900 people (0.4%) higher than March 2020

Flows into and out of employment

Full-time and part-time employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2021:

  • Full-time employment increased by 33,800 to 8,889,500 people, and part-time employment decreased by 64,400 to 4,150,900 people
  • Over the year to April 2021, full-time employment increased by 249,600 people and part-time employment increased by 388,300 people
  • Since March 2020, full-time employment increased by 24,600 people and part-time employment increased by 21,300 people 

  • The part-time share of employment was 31.8%, the same as March 2020, and 1.5 pts higher than April 2020 

A discussion of how to interpret estimates of full-time and part-time employment can be found in Understanding full-time and part-time work.

Employment-to-population ratio

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2021:

  • Decreased by 0.2 pts to 62.3%
  • Increased by 2.8 pts from April 2020, and is less than 0.1 pts below March 2020

The employment-to-population ratio provides a measure of employment relative to the size of the population.

Hours worked

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2021, monthly hours worked in all jobs :

  • ​​​​​Decreased 13 million hours (0.7%) to 1,793 million hours from 1,806 million hours in March 2021
  • Increased by 12.5% over the year, which was larger than the 5.1% increase in employed people
  • Increased 31 million hours (1.8%) from March 2020 

See the article Insights into hours worked for more.

Participation

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2021, the participation rate:

  • Decreased 0.3 pts to 66.0%
  • Decreased by 0.1 pts for men (to 70.8%) and decreased 0.5 pts for women (to 61.3%)
  • Increased 2.4 pts since April 2020, and was 0.1 pts higher than March 2020

Underemployment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2021:

  • The underemployment rate decreased by 0.2 pts to 7.8% from March 2021
  • The underemployment rate was 5.9 pts lower than April 2020, and 1.0 pts lower than March 2020 
  • The underutilisation rate decreased by 0.4 pts to 13.3% from March 2021

States and territories

April 2021, Seasonally adjusted
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaNorthern TerritoryAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
Employed people4,093,5003,446,5002,614,600864,2001,391,800258,200130,800238,10013,040,400
Employed people - monthly change-0.9%0.1%-0.3%1.8%-1.0%-0.9%1.4%1.4%-0.2%
Employment to population ratio61.6%62.9%62.3%59.2%64.6%57.5%69.3%69.3%62.3%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change-0.6 pts0.1 pts-0.2 pts1.0 pts-0.7 pts-0.6 pts0.9 pts0.8 pts-0.2 pts
Unemployment rate5.5%5.5%6.1%5.7%4.9%6.2%3.8%3.4%5.5%
Unemployment rate - monthly change0.0 pts-0.6 pts0.1 pts-0.7 pts-0.1 pts0.2 pts-1.8 pts-0.1 pts-0.2 pts
Underemployment rate7.6%7.7%8.5%8.3%7.1%8.6%5.2%5.6%7.8%
Underemployment rate - monthly change-0.3 pts-0.2 pts-0.1 pts-0.3 pts-0.3 pts-0.8 pts0.0 pts0.8 pts-0.2 pts
Participation rate65.2%66.5%66.4%62.8%68.0%61.3%72.0%71.7%66.0%
Participation rate - monthly change-0.6 pts-0.4 pts-0.2 pts0.6 pts-0.8 pts-0.5 pts-0.5 pts0.8 pts-0.3 pts

Rotation group analysis

Sample composition and rotation

Estimates for the incoming and outgoing rotation groups

States and territories

Managing COVID-19 impacts on the incoming rotation groups

Comparability with seasonally adjusted data

Contribution from sample components to estimates

Data downloads

Labour Force Survey results are released in three stages.

  1. Spreadsheets of the headline indicators are published in this release
  2. Additional, more detailed spreadsheets and pivot tables are published in Labour Force, Australia, Detailed one week after this first release
  3. Longitudinal labour force microdata are released in the ABS DataLab on a monthly basis, one day after the detailed release (see Microdata: Longitudinal Labour Force, Australia)

See the Survey output section of Labour Force, Australia methodology for more information.

Labour Force status

Data files

Hours worked

Data files

Underemployment and underutilisation

Data files

Flows into and out of employment

GM1 - Labour force status and Gross changes (flows) by Age, Sex, State and Territory, February 1991 onwards

All time series spreadsheets

All time series spreadsheets

Article archive

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6202.0.

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