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Labour Force, Australia

Latest release

Headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked from the monthly Labour Force Survey

Reference period
September 2026
Released
15/10/2026
  • Next Release 19/11/2026
    Labour Force, Australia, October 2026
  • Next Release 17/12/2026
    Labour Force, Australia, November 2026
  • Next Release 21/01/2027
    Labour Force, Australia, December 2026
  • View all releases
Release date and time
15/10/2026 11:30am AEDT

Key statistics

In seasonally adjusted terms, in September 2026:

  • the employment-to-population ratio decreased 0.3ppt to 63.6%.
  • the unemployment rate increased 0.1ppt to 4.7%.

In trend terms, in September 2026:

  • the employment-to-population ratio remained at 63.8%.
  • the unemployment rate remained at 4.6%.

Main features

Labour Force Modernisation

The release of the September 2026 Labour Force, Australia marks the return to the full suite of Labour Force data products.

For full details on how Labour Force statistics will be published from this month, see Update on the Labour Force Modernisation and future release plans.

Key statistics - Seasonally adjusted
Aug-26Sep-26Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Employed people14,822,00014,782,700-39,300-0.3%168,3001.2%
Employment to population ratio63.9%63.6%-0.3 ptsna-0.3 ptsna
Unemployed people723,100732,0008,9001.2%55,2008.2%
Unemployment rate4.7%4.7%0.1 ptsna0.3 ptsna
Underemployment rate6.2%6.3%0.1 ptsna0.4 ptsna
Participation rate67.0%66.8%-0.2 ptsna-0.2 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs2,010 million2,011 million1 million0.1%25 million1.3%
Key statistics - Trend
Aug-26Sep-26Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Employed people14,811,00014,826,70015,7000.1%210,8001.4%
Employment to population ratio63.8%63.8%0.0 ptsna-0.2 ptsna
Unemployed people715,200722,3007,1001.0%66,00010.1%
Unemployment rate4.6%4.6%0.0 ptsna0.3 ptsna
Underemployment rate6.3%6.3%0.0 ptsna0.5 ptsna
Participation rate66.9%66.9%0.0 ptsna0.1 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs2,006 million2,007 million1 million0.0%21 million1.1%

Estimates of changes throughout this release are calculated using un-rounded level estimates and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from the rounded level estimates.

For definitions of labour statistics used in this publication, please refer to Glossary of Labour Force, Australia methodology.

Survey impacts and changes

Labour Force Modernisation

Classification changes to occupation related data

Weighting adjustments in Victoria

Rotation group analysis

Survey dates

Employment

In September 2026, employment decreased by 39,300 people (-0.3%) to 14,782,700 people in seasonally adjusted terms. Full-time employment increased by 34,400 to 10,232,400 people, and part-time employment decreased by 73,700 to 4,550,200 people.

Large month-to-month changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in multiple trend breaks. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period. Information on trend breaks can be found in Labour Force, Australia methodology, September 2026.

Employment-to-population ratio

In September 2026, the employment-to-population ratio decreased by 0.3ppt to 63.6% in seasonally adjusted terms. The employment-to-population ratio decreased by 0.3ppt to 67.2% for males, and decreased by 0.2ppt to 60.2% for females.

Large month-to-month changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in multiple trend breaks. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period. Information on trend breaks can be found in Labour Force, Australia methodology, September 2026.

Unemployment

In September 2026, the unemployment rate increased by 0.1ppt to 4.7% in seasonally adjusted terms, with the number of unemployed people increasing by 8,900 to 732,000 people. The unemployment rate remained at 4.8% for males and increased by 0.1ppt to 4.6% for females. The youth unemployment rate increased by 0.3ppt to 11.1%.

Large month-to-month changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in multiple trend breaks. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period. Information on trend breaks can be found in Labour Force, Australia methodology, September 2026.

Underemployment

In September 2026, the underemployment rate increased by 0.1ppt to 6.3% and the underutilisation rate increased by 0.2ppt to 11.0% in seasonally adjusted terms.

Large month-to-month changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in multiple trend breaks. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period. Information on trend breaks can be found in Labour Force, Australia methodology, September 2026.

Participation

In September 2026, the participation rate decreased 0.2ppt to 66.8% in seasonally adjusted terms. The participation rate decreased by 0.3ppt to 70.6% for males and decreased by 0.1ppt to 63.1% for females.

Large month-to-month changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in multiple trend breaks. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period. Information on trend breaks can be found in Labour Force, Australia methodology, September 2026.

Hours worked

In September 2026, monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 1.3 million hours to 2,011 million hours in seasonally adjusted terms.

Large month-to-month changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in multiple trend breaks. The ABS recommends caution when using trend estimates published in spreadsheets in this release for this period. Information on trend breaks can be found in Labour Force, Australia methodology, September 2026.

In seasonally adjusted terms, monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 0.1%, while there was a 0.3% decrease in employment.

States and Territories

September 2026 - Seasonally adjusted
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaAustralia
Employed people4,514,4003,822,8003,043,200991,3001,706,600278,50014,782,700
Employed people - monthly change-0.8%-0.1%-0.1%0.2%1.3%-0.7%-0.3%
Employment to population ratio62.6%64.0%63.9%61.5%66.2%56.7%63.6%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change-0.6 pts-0.2 pts-0.1 pts0.1 pts0.7 pts-0.5 pts-0.3 pts
Unemployment rate4.7%5.1%4.5%4.2%4.2%5.0%4.7%
Unemployment rate - monthly change0.4 pts-0.1 pts0.0 pts-0.5 pts-0.2 pts0.0 pts0.1 pts
Underemployment rate5.6%6.9%6.8%7.3%5.6%7.2%6.3%
Underemployment rate - monthly change0.2 pts0.1 pts0.3 pts0.8 pts-0.2 pts0.2 pts0.1 pts
Participation rate65.7%67.4%66.9%64.1%69.1%59.7%66.8%
Participation rate - monthly change-0.4 pts-0.3 pts-0.1 pts-0.3 pts0.6 pts-0.5 pts-0.2 pts

Seasonally adjusted estimates for NT and ACT are not available due to having no seasonality. The ABS recommends using trend data.

September 2026 - Trend
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaNorthern TerritoryAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
Employed people4,537,6003,829,0003,047,600991,2001,697,900280,100145,800276,00014,826,700
Employed people - monthly change-0.1%0.2%0.1%0.2%0.3%-0.1%-0.2%0.0%0.1%
Employment to population ratio63.0%64.2%64.0%61.5%65.8%57.1%68.3%68.4%63.8%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change-0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts-0.1 pts-0.3 pts-0.1 pts0.0 pts
Unemployment rate4.5%5.1%4.5%4.3%4.3%5.2%4.8%4.2%4.6%
Unemployment rate - monthly change0.1 pts0.0 pts0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts
Underemployment rate5.6%7.0%6.7%7.0%5.7%7.0%5.0%6.0%6.3%
Underemployment rate - monthly change0.0 pts0.0 pts0.1 pts0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts
Participation rate66.0%67.6%67.0%64.2%68.8%60.2%71.8%71.5%66.9%
Participation rate - monthly change-0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts-0.2 pts-0.1 pts0.0 pts

Data downloads

The release of the September 2026 Labour Force, Australia marks the return to the full suite of Labour Force data products.

From the September 2026 reference period onwards, our monthly publications include:

  1. Labour Force, Australia headline spreadsheets and pivot tables, released on the third Thursday of each month.
  2. Longitudinal Labour Force, Australia microdata released in ABS DataLab six days after the release of the headline estimates.
  3. A new Regional Labour Force publication released one week after the headline estimates.
  4. TableBuilder: Labour Force Survey released eight days after the headline estimates.
  5. Labour Force PLIDA Modular Product released approximately 2 weeks after the headline estimates.

There may be some shifts in detailed labour force timeseries data following improvements to select questions and rotation group patterns as part of Labour Force Modernisation. For further information, see Survey impacts and changes.

Labour Force status

Monthly

Data files

Hours worked

Monthly

Data files

Status in employment

Monthly

Data files

Industry and Occupation

Monthly

Data files
Data files

Unemployed duration of job search

Monthly

Data files

Retrenchment

Monthly

Data files
Data files

Underemployment and underutilisation

Monthly

Data files
Data files

Not in the labour force

Monthly

Data files

Table name concordance

This table provides a concordance between the Labour Force data downloads prior to Labour Force Modernisation and the current format. For further details on these changes, see Update on the Labour Force Modernisation and future release plans.

Labour Force Australia – Table name concordance (post transition period)

All spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

Data in the Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the time period when using Data Explorer.

Labour Force status by Sex, State and Territory - Number of people employed, unemployed and not in the labour force, monthly, February 1978 onwards.

Labour Force monthly hours worked by Sex, State and Territory - Monthly hours worked by employed people, monthly, July 1978 onwards.

Labour Force status by Age Groups - Number of people employed, unemployed and not in the labour force, monthly, February 1978 onwards.

Labour Force underemployment and underutilisation - Number of underutilised persons by region, age and sex, monthly, February 1978 onwards.

Labour Force: Employed persons by Hours worked in all jobs and Sex - Number of people employed and actual weekly hours worked, by detailed hours groups, monthly, January 1991 onwards.

Labour Force: Status in employment of main job and Sex - Number of people employed, by status in employment, monthly, January 1991 onwards.

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

Article archive

Employment and jobs

Unemployment and underemployment

Hours worked

Methodology

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6202.0.

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