6222.0 - Job Search Experience, Australia, July 2012 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 16/01/2013   
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MEDIA RELEASE
16 January 2013
Embargoed: 11.30 am Canberra Time
05/2013

Long-term unemployment remains steady

Almost one in five (19.6 per cent) of unemployed people in July 2012 were unemployed for one year or more, according to an Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report released today.

ABS Director of Labour Force and Supplementary Surveys, Cassandra Gligora, said the Job Search Experience survey collected information on the experiences of people seeking work such as steps taken to find work and the difficulties encountered in finding work. The survey collected information from unemployed people, employed people who started their job in 2012 and people employed for more than a year in their job who had looked for work in the last year.

Ms Gligora said, "For long-term unemployed people the most commonly reported difficulties in finding a job was their own health or a disability (18 per cent) and too many applicants for available jobs (14 per cent).

"Around 1.7 million people had started their current job in the last 12 months to July 2012. Nearly a quarter of people (23 per cent) searched for less than a month before starting their job while 34 per cent did not look for work. Only five per cent who had started a job had looked for work for one year or more. Of those who had started a job in the last 12 months, 156,000 people had started their own business" Ms Gligora said.

Further details can be found in Job Search Experience, Australia (cat. no. 6222.0), available for free download from www.abs.gov.au.

Media note: When reporting on these statistics, attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or ABS) as the source.