Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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Persons not in the labour force are people who are neither employed nor unemployed in a particular reference period. They are divided into those with marginal attachment to the labour force and those without marginal attachment to the labour force, based on whether they wanted to work, whether they actively looked for work in the last 12 months and whether they were available for work.

The Persons Not in the Labour Force Survey collects a range of information about people not in the labour force, including the reasons why they were not actively looking for work or were not available for work, their main activity while not in the labour force, whether they have worked previously and if so, time since their last job, occupation in their last job and the reasons for ceasing their last job.

Estimates can be cross-classified by labour force demographics such as state, sex, marital status and birthplace.