Labour Account Australia

Latest release

The Australian Labour Account provides quarterly time series data, consisting of four quadrants: Jobs, Persons, Hours and Payments

Reference period
September 2025
Released
5/12/2025
  • Next Release 6/03/2026
    Labour Account Australia, December 2025
  • Next Release 5/06/2026
    Labour Account Australia, March 2026
  • View all releases
Release date and time
05/12/2025 11:30am AEDT

Key statistics

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025:

  • total jobs increased 0.6% to 16.4 million
  • filled jobs increased 0.7% to 16.1 million
  • secondary jobs increased 3.8% to 1.1 million
  • proportion of vacant jobs decreased to 2.0%
  • multiple job-holders increased 2.2% to 973,000
  • hours worked increased 0.2% to 6.0 billion hours.
Key statistics - Seasonally adjusted
 Sep-25Quarterly change (%)Annual change (%)
Jobs 
 Total jobs16,404,2000.6%1.1%
 Filled jobs16,071,9000.7%1.2%
 Job vacancies332,300-1.9%-2.0%
 Main jobs14,980,8000.5%1.3%
 Secondary jobs1,091,1003.8%-0.7%
 Proportion of vacant jobs2.0%nana
People 
 Employed people14,954,7000.3%1.4%
 Multiple job holders973,0002.2%-0.8%
 Multiple job holding rate6.5%nana
Hours 
 Hours actually worked6,007.3 million0.2%1.3%
Payments 
 Average income per employed person$25,448.801.4%5.4%
Key statistics - Trend
 Sep-25Quarterly change (%)Annual change (%)
Jobs 
 Total jobs16,370,0000.4%1.2%
 Filled jobs16,036,7000.4%1.2%
 Job vacancies333,300-0.4%-2.4%
 Main jobs14,968,5000.4%1.5%
 Secondary jobs1,068,2000.3%-2.8%
 Proportion of vacant jobs2.0%nana
People 
 Employed people14,955,4000.3%1.5%
 Multiple job holders960,9000.0%-1.7%
 Multiple job holding rate6.4%nana
Hours 
 Hours actually worked6,006.4 million0.2%1.4%
Payments 
 Average income per employed person$25,411.501.2%5.2%

New estimates of sex and age

In June 2025 the ABS released Labour Account data modelled by sex and age.

From the December quarter 2025 onwards, the quarterly Labour Account release will be expanded to include sex and age estimates (to be released one week after the main release).

The Multiple job-holders publication will also be released one week after the main Labour Account release as data in that release will be a subset of the new sex and age estimates.

Sample blank templates for the Sex and Age Labour Account estimates are available in the data downloads section of this release. The first release of the new estimates will be on the 13th of March 2026.

Factors affecting interpretation

Revisions this quarter

Stock and flow estimates

Guide to labour statistics

Jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025:

  • filled jobs increased by 0.7%, following a 0.4% rise in the June quarter 2025. Filled jobs grew by 1.2% through the year
  • the number of main jobs increased by 67,300 (or 0.5%)
  • the proportion of vacant jobs decreased to 2.0%
  • the number of public sector jobs increased by 0.5%, while the number of private sector jobs increased by 0.6%.

Total jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025, the total number of jobs increased by 101,200 (or 0.6%). This consisted of a decrease of 6,500 job vacancies and a increase of 107,600 filled jobs.

Filled jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025, the number of filled jobs increased by 107,600 to 16.1 million.

  1. Larger than usual quarter-to-quarter changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period.
Filled jobs, by industry, September quarter 2025, seasonally adjusted
Filled jobs ('000)Quarterly change (%)Annual change (%)
Agriculture, forestry and fishing (A)440.60.0-0.3
Mining (B)228.31.2-1.9
Manufacturing (C)913.0-0.3-2.7
Electricity, gas, water and waste services (D)147.31.35.1
Construction (E)1,317.41.63.6
Wholesale trade (F)582.5-0.5-2.9
Retail trade (G)1,525.90.6-0.7
Accommodation and food services (H)1,299.81.04.5
Transport, postal and warehousing (I)715.00.23.3
Information media and telecommunications (J)205.0-1.5-0.3
Financial and insurance services (K)523.31.22.7
Rental, hiring and real estate services (L)295.40.3-0.9
Professional, scientific and technical services (M)1,305.1-0.30.3
Administrative and support services (N)956.10.70.8
Public administration and safety (O)886.81.11.5
Education and training (P)1,317.51.22.1
Health care and social assistance (Q)2,553.70.91.4
Arts and recreation services (R)290.51.01.7
Other services (S)568.51.42.9
Total all industries16,071.90.71.2

Main and secondary jobs

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025:

  • main jobs increased by 67,300 (or 0.5%)
  • secondary jobs increased by 40,300 (or 3.8%)
  • the proportion of secondary jobs to filled jobs increased to 6.8%.

The three industries with the highest number of secondary jobs were Health care and social assistance, Administrative and support services, and Education and training.

Secondary jobs can be held by people who have their main job in the same or a different industry. 

Statistical discrepancy - Filled jobs

People

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025:

  • the total number of employed people increased by 0.3% to 15.0 million
  • the number of multiple job holders increased by 2.2%
  • unemployed people increased by 20,900 people to 673,800.
  1. Larger than usual quarter-to-quarter changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period.

The three industries with the highest number of employed people in the September quarter 2025 were Health care and social assistance, Retail trade, and Construction.

Hours

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025, the total number of hours actually worked increased by 14.1 million hours (or 0.2%) to 6.0 billion hours.

  1. Larger than usual quarter-to-quarter changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period.

The three industries with the highest number of hours actually worked in the September quarter 2025 were Health care and social assistance, Construction, and Professional, scientific and technical services.

Payments

The Labour Account Payments quadrant presents the costs incurred by enterprises in employing labour, and the income received by people from its provision. Total income consists of compensation of employees and labour income from self-employment. The addition of other related costs to employers to total income will derive total labour costs.

In seasonally adjusted terms for the September quarter 2025:

  • total labour income increased by $6,318 million (or 1.7%) to $380,578 million
  • the average labour income per employed person increased by 1.4% to $25,449
  • total compensation of employees increased by 1.7% to $351,360 million
  • labour income from self-employment increased by 2.1% to $29,218 million
  • total labour costs increased by $6,745 million (or 1.7%) to $405,566 million.

 

  1. Larger than usual quarter-to-quarter changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period.

The three industries with the highest total labour income in the September quarter 2025 were Health care and social assistance, Professional, scientific and technical services, and Construction.

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Quarterly estimates for Jobs, People, Hours and Payments by Industry Division and Total All Industries.

Data files

Pivot Tables: Modelled Sex and Age estimates in the Labour Account

Templates of quarterly indicative sex and age estimates for Jobs, People, Hours and Payments by Industry Division and Total All Industries

Data files

Subdivison datasets

Industry subdivision estimates are available through Data Explorer.

Data Explorer datasets

Labour Account balanced 

  • Quarterly balanced original estimates for Jobs, People, Hours and Payments are available by Industry Subdivision, Division and Total All Industries.
  • Quarterly balanced seasonally adjusted and trend estimates for Job, People, Hours and Payments are available by Industry Division and Total all industries.

For information on Data Explorer and how it works, see the Data explorer user guide.

Article archive

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Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6150.0.55.003.

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