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
January 2021
Released
18/02/2021

Key statistics

Seasonally adjusted estimates for January 2021:

  • Unemployment rate decreased to 6.4%.
  • Participation rate decreased to 66.1%.
  • Employment increased to 12,939,900.
  • Employment to population ratio increased to 61.9%.
  • Underemployment rate decreased to 8.1%.
  • Monthly hours worked decreased by 86 million hours.
Dec-20Jan-21Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Seasonally adjusted
Employed people12,910,80012,939,90029,1000.2%-45,600-0.4%
Unemployed people912,000877,600-34,300-3.8%156,00021.6%
Unemployment rate6.6%6.4%-0.2 ptsna1.1 ptsna
Underemployment rate8.5%8.1%-0.4 ptsna-0.4 ptsna
Participation rate66.2%66.1%-0.1 ptsna0.1 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs 1,753 million 1,667 million-86 million-4.9%-100 million-5.7%

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

Managing the impact of COVID-19 on labour force statistics

Survey response and timeline

Continued suspension of trend estimates

Seasonal Adjustment

Treatment of people on JobKeeper, JobSeeker or stood down

For further information, please email labour.statistics@abs.gov.au.

Articles and other information

This months Labour Force release includes:

  • Additional analysis of hours worked - including comparisons of the original and seasonally adjusted series to help understand the seasonally adjusted movements in hours worked; and for people working less hours than usual (see Insights into hours worked)
  • A discussion of how full-time and part-time status is derived, and alternative approaches to understanding full-time and part-time work (see Understanding full-time and part-time work)

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 January 2021:

  • The unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 6.4% (1.1 pts higher than a year ago)
  • Unemployed people decreased by 34,300 to 877,600 (and increased by 156,000 over the year to January 2021)
  • The youth unemployment rate remained at 13.9% (and increased by 1.8 pts over the year to January 2021)

Employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in January 2021:

  • Employment increased by 29,100 people (0.2%) to 12,939,900 people
  • Over the year to January 2021, employment decreased by 0.4% or 45,600 people

Flows into and out of employment

Full-time and part-time employment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in January 2021:

  • Full-time employment increased by 59,000 to 8,820,400 people, and part-time employment decreased by 29,800 to 4,119,500 people
  • Over the year to January 2021, full-time employment decreased by 62,900 people and part-time employment increased by 17,300 people
  • The part-time share of employment over the past 12 months, increased 0.2 pts to 31.8%

 See the article Understanding full-time and part-time work for further analysis.

Employment-to-population ratio

In seasonally adjusted terms, in January 2021:

  • The employment-to-population ratio increased by 0.1 pts to 61.9%, and decreased by 0.7 pts from the same time last year

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

Hours worked

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

  • Decreased by 86.0 million hours (4.9%) to 1,667 million hours
  • Decreased by 5.7% over the year, larger than the 0.4% decrease in employed people

See the article Insights into hours worked for more.

Participation

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

  • Decreased by 0.1 pts to 66.1%, and increased 0.1 pts over the year to January 2021
  • Increased by 0.1 pts for men (to 71.2%) and decreased by 0.2 pts for women (to 61.2%)

Underemployment

In seasonally adjusted terms, in January 2021:

  • The underemployment rate decreased by 0.4 pts to 8.1% (0.4 pts lower than a year ago)
  • The underutilisation rate decreased by 0.6 pts to 14.5%

States and territories

January 2021, Seasonally adjusted
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaNorthern TerritoryAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
Employed people4,075,2003,429,4002,582,200840,2001,366,400257,100130,600234,00012,939,900
Employed people - monthly change0.0%1.3%0.1%-1.4%-1.0%1.2%1.1%-2.0%0.2%
Employment to population ratio61.3%62.4%61.7%57.7%63.6%57.4%69.3%68.1%61.9%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change0.0 pts0.8 pts0.0 pts-0.9 pts-0.7 pts0.6 pts0.8 pts-1.4 pts0.1 pts
Unemployment rate6.0%6.3%7.0%7.1%6.2%5.9%5.6%4.4%6.4%
Unemployment rate - monthly change-0.3 pts-0.2 pts-0.5 pts0.7 pts-0.1 pts-1.1 pts0.2 pts0.7 pts-0.2 pts
Underemployment rate8.0%8.5%8.6%8.3%7.0%8.9%6.9%5.7%8.1%
Underemployment rate - monthly change-0.4 pts-0.5 pts0.1 pts-2.0 pts-0.6 pts-0.9 pts0.6 pts-0.3 pts-0.4 pts
Participation rate65.3%66.7%66.3%62.1%67.8%61.0%73.4%71.2%66.1%
Participation rate - monthly change-0.3 pts0.6 pts-0.4 pts-0.4 pts-0.8 pts-0.1 pts1.0 pts-1.0 pts-0.1 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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