Labour Force, Australia, Jul 2009

MEDIA RELEASE

August 5, 2009

Embargoed: 11:30am (AEST)

55/2009

The ABS will introduce a new measure of hours worked - aggregate monthly hours worked - in tomorrow's release of Labour Force, Australia (cat.no. 6202.0). The data will be available at the national level, on a seasonally adjusted and trend basis from July 1985 onwards. The estimates will be included in a feature article. Aggregate monthly hours worked will be included in the suite of labour force products from the August 2009 reference period.

Hours worked data are a key indicator of labour demand and provide an additional insight into changes in the labour market. For example, the number of employed persons may remain steady however the number of hours worked by employed persons may change, indicating a decrease or increase in labour demand that may not otherwise be detectable from the headcount estimates. Publication of trend and seasonally adjusted aggregate monthly hours worked will provide an indication of economic activity currently not available in the data released from the Labour Force Survey.

An Information Paper with further information about the methodology on aggregate monthly hours worked series, trend and seasonally adjusted, will be released on 8 September 2009.

Media Note: Please ensure that you attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source when reporting on ABS data.