Early impacts of COVID-19 were seen in hours worked data in early March, prior to the extensive social distancing measures, shut-downs of non-essential services and trading restrictions that came into effect later in the month.
While these major changes had a considerable impact on employment, the effect on hours worked was particularly pronounced. Hours worked reduced by 9.2% between March and April in seasonally adjusted terms, which was double the decrease in employed people (4.6%).
Charts 1, 2 and 3 show the monthly changes in seasonally adjusted hours worked and employment, with the large, unprecedented drop in hours worked in April.
Source: Labour Force, Australia Tables 1 and 19
The reductions in hours worked were greater for women than for men, with female hours reducing by 11.5%, compared to a 7.5% reduction in male hours worked.
Source: Labour Force, Australia Tables 1 and 19
Source: Labour Force, Australia Tables 1 and 19
The overall reductions in hours worked can also be considered in terms of changes in the number of people working within various hours ranges.
Table 1 shows the distribution of employed men and women across the hours worked categories in April, compared with the previous 5 years, to control for seasonality. Controlling for seasonality in April data is more difficult than in other months, because of variation in the timing of Easter, and school holidays (and the effect these holidays have on hours worked).
There was a larger percentage of employed males and females who worked zero hours in April 2020, compared to previous years. Smaller proportions were seen across all other categories, with the decline more pronounced in the 1-19 and 20-34 hours ranges.
| Males | Females | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 hours | 1-19 hours | 20-34 hours | 35-44 hours | 45-59 hours | 60+ hours | 0 hours | 1-19 hours | 20-34 hours | 35-44 hours | 45-59 hours | 60+ hours | ||
| Apr-15 | 8.7% | 11.0% | 34.9% | 26.9% | 12.1% | 6.4% | Apr-15 | 12.9% | 23.1% | 39.1% | 17.5% | 5.6% | 1.9% |
| Apr-16 | 6.3% | 9.9% | 15.0% | 38.8% | 20.4% | 9.7% | Apr-16 | 10.1% | 20.7% | 26.1% | 31.4% | 8.7% | 2.9% |
| Apr-17 | 8.0% | 10.5% | 24.4% | 32.9% | 16.3% | 7.9% | Apr-17 | 13.0% | 21.4% | 32.6% | 24.2% | 6.4% | 2.5% |
| Apr-18 | 7.7% | 10.6% | 25.8% | 32.1% | 16.0% | 7.8% | Apr-18 | 11.5% | 21.8% | 33.9% | 23.6% | 7.0% | 2.3% |
| Apr-19 | 5.7% | 10.0% | 15.5% | 40.5% | 19.5% | 8.8% | Apr-19 | 8.6% | 19.5% | 28.9% | 32.1% | 8.1% | 2.7% |
| Apr-20 | 11.4% | 10.3% | 22.0% | 35.1% | 14.5% | 6.6% | Apr-20 | 18.2% | 18.5% | 28.6% | 25.7% | 6.9% | 2.1% |
Source: Labour Force, Australia, Detailed Table 9
Chart 4 shows that the proportions of employed males and females who worked zero hours were greater in April 2020 than in any April over the past 20 years.
Source: Labour Force, Australia, Detailed Table 9
The impact of the reduction in hours can also be seen in the underemployment rate, which increased by 4.9 pts to a historical high of 13.7%. The number of underemployed people increased by over 600,000 in April 2020, to 1.8 million people.
Historically, the female underemployment rate has been noticeably higher than the male underemployment rate. However, the increase in the male underemployment rate (5.5 pts) between March and April was much larger than the increase in the female underemployment rate (4.2 pts). As a result, the male and female underemployment rates in April were closer than they were previously, with the female rate at 14.8%, and the male rate at 13.7%.
The much larger rise in underemployment for men can largely be attributed to the full-time/part composition of the workforce and the make-up of the underemployed population. Employed people are considered underemployed if:
As women are far more likely than males to work part-time, many more females are underemployed according to the first of the two criteria. As more men are employed full-time, more males than females are underemployed due to the second criterion.
Given the major change in hours worked in April, much of the increase in underemployment can be attributed to an increase in full-time people working part-time (or no) hours for economic reasons.
While underemployment helps to provide an indication of spare capacity in the labour market, and demonstrates some of the large impacts on the labour market between March and April, it does not include all people whose hours were reduced.
In addition to the two groups highlighted earlier, there is an additional group of employed people who worked less than their usual hours for economic reasons. These are employed people who:
The following chart shows the number of males and females working fewer than their usual hours, or no hours at all. There were around 1.8 million people who worked fewer than their usual hours for economic reasons in April 2020. This comprises:
Source: Labour Force, Australia, Detailed Data Cube EM2a
Of these 1.8 million employed people who worked less than their usual hours for economic reasons:
The number of people working zero hours for economic reasons accounted for roughly half of the total number of people working fewer hours, as shown in chart 7.
Source: Labour Force, Australia, Detailed Data Cube EM2a
Table 2 shows the proportion of people in each of the hours worked categories in April by their hours of work in the previous month.
It shows that of the employed people who worked zero hours in April:
| Hours worked in April | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hours worked in March | 0 hours | 1-19 hours | 20-34 hours | 35-44 hours | 45-59 hours | 60+ hours | Not employed* |
| 0 hours | 12.8% | 4.7% | 3.9% | 3.4% | 3.6% | 2.3% | 1.5% |
| 1-19 hours | 24.7% | 47.3% | 8.7% | 2.8% | 2.4% | 1.5% | 4.6% |
| 20-34 hours | 25.2% | 26.0% | 42.8% | 14.9% | 7.5% | 4.4% | 2.7% |
| 35-44 hours | 21.6% | 11.1% | 34.6% | 63.3% | 28.8% | 11.4% | 1.9% |
| 45-59 hours | 7.7% | 3.6% | 6.4% | 12.1% | 46.3% | 26.4% | 0.5% |
| 60+ hours | 2.5% | 1.2% | 1.5% | 2.1% | 10.3% | 53.2% | 0.2% |
| Not employed* | 5.5% | 6.1% | 2.2% | 1.4% | 1.0% | 0.9% | 88.6% |
| Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
* Not employed includes all people who were unemployed or not in the labour force.
Source: Labour Force unpublished data.
Hours worked for March are derived based on information from the first two weeks of the month and do not account for the large drop in hours in late March. The ABS will produce a modelled estimate of hours lost in late March, resulting from the extensive social distancing measures, shut-downs of non-essential services and trading restrictions that came into effect later in March, and will incorporate this into the March 2020 quarter of the National Accounts and the Labour Accounts.
For further information, email labour.statistics@abs.gov.au.