Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Nov 2009	Dec 2009	Nov 09 to Dec 09		Dec 08 to Dec 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 862.0	10 884.3	22.3		0.8	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	652.0	648.2	-3.8		20.9	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.7	5.6	0.0	pts	0.9	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.2	0.0	pts	-0.1	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 870.7	10 905.9	35.2		1.0	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	650.0	639.4	-10.6		22.7	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.6	5.5	-0.1	pts	0.9	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.2	65.2	0.0	pts	0.0	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased to 10,884,300
• Unemployment decreased to 648,200
• Unemployment rate decreased to 5.6%
• Participation rate remained at 65.2%
• Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,533.9 million hours

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 35,200 (0.3%) to 10,905,900. Full-time employment increased 7,300 to 7,635,100 and part-time employment increased 27,900 to 3,270,800.
• Unemployment decreased 10,600 (-1.6%) to 639,400. The number of persons looking for full-time work decreased 15,700 to 467,200 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased 5,100 to 172,100.
• Unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pt to 5.5%. The male unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 5.6% and the female unemployment rate remained at 5.5%.
• Participation rate remained at 65.2%.
• Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 1.0 million hours (-0.1%) to 1,535.6 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
January 2010	11 February 2010
February 2010	11 March 2010
March 2010	8 April 2010
April 2010	13 May 2010
May 2010	10 June 2010
June 2010	8 July 2010

CHANGES THIS MONTH

The re-instatement of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) sample is complete. The sample was introduced over a four month period, commencing in September 2009. Detailed information about the sample reinstatement is available in Information Paper: Labour force Survey Sample Design, Nov 2007 (Third edition) (cat. no. 6269.0).


SAMPLING ERROR

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Therefore, published estimates and the movements derived from them are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of this variability, see pages 33 and 34. The interval bounded by two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates. This represents a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

Movements in seasonally adjusted series between November 2009 and December 2009
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	35 200	-17 800	to	88 200
Total Unemployment	-10 600	-41 600	to	20 400
Unemployment rate	-0.1 pts	-0.3 pts	to	0.1 pts
Participation rate	0.0 pts	-0.4 pts	to	0.4 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 Steve Wood on Canberra (02) 6252 6525, email labourforce@abs.gov.au.