Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

MAY KEY FIGURES

		Apr 2013	May 2013	Apr 13 to May 13		May 12 to May 13
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 654.7	11 664.6	9.9		1.3	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	683.0	687.7	4.7		10.1	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.5	5.6	0.0	pts	0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.3	65.3	0.0	pts	0.0	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 662.2	11 663.3	1.1		1.1	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	686.5	682.9	-3.6		8.7	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.6	5.5	0.0	pts	0.4	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.3	65.2	-0.1	pts	-0.2	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

MAY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 11,664,600.
• Unemployment increased to 687,700.
• Unemployment rate at 5.6%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 65.3%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,634.0 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 1,100 to 11,663,300. Full-time employment decreased 5,300 to 8,153,600 and part-time employment increased 6,400 to 3,509,600.
• Unemployment decreased 3,600 (0.5%) to 682,900. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased 2,700 to 506,300 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased 6,300 to 176,600.
• The unemployment rate at 5.5%.
• The participation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 65.2%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 11.5 million hours to 1,628.5 million hours.

LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION (QUARTERLY CHANGE)

• Trend estimates: The labour force underutilisation rate increased to 12.8% from 12.6%.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: The labour force underutilisation rate increased 0.4 pts to 12.9%. The male labour force underutilisation rate increased 0.4 pts to 11.2%. The female labour force underutilisation rate increased 0.3 pts to 15.0%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
June 2013	11 July 2013
July 2013	8 August 2013
August 2013	12 September 2013
September 2013	10 October 2013
October 2013	7 November 2013
November 2013	12 December 2013

NOTES RELATING TO MAY ISSUE

See page 5 for details on the following:

• Rebenchmarking of Labour Force estimates
• Online collection in the Labour Force Survey
• New Labour market microdata available.

ANNUAL SEASONAL REANALYSIS

The annual seasonal reanalysis was conducted on April 2013 estimates. See the article on page 7 of this issue for more information.


NEW LABOUR FORCE SAMPLE DESIGN

The new labour force sample is being phased-in over four month from May to August 2013. See the article on page 10 of this issue for more information.


ROUNDING

Estimates of monthly and quarterly changes shown on the front cover and used in the commentary have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from the rounded estimates. The graphs on the front cover also depict unrounded estimates.


SAMPLING ERROR

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Published estimates and the movements derived from them are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of sampling variability (see pages 40 and 41). The interval bounded by two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates. There is a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

MOVEMENTS IN SEASONALLY ADJUSTED SERIES BETWEEN APRIL 2013 AND MAY 2013
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	1 100	-58 700	to	60 900
Total Unemployment	-3 600	-39 000	to	31 800
Unemployment rate	0.0 pts	-0.2 pts	to	0.2 pts
Participation rate	-0.1 pts	-0.5 pts	to	0.3 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070, email client.services@abs.gov.au or Labour Force on Canberra (02) 6252 6525, email labourforce@abs.gov.au\>.