JANUARY KEY FIGURES

		Dec 2008	Jan 2009	Dec 08 to Jan 09		Jan 08 to Jan 09
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	10 745.1	10 745.4	0.3		1.0	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	511.4	521.2	9.8		13.2	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	4.5	4.6	0.1	pts	0.5	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.1	65.0	0.0	pts	-0.2	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	10 740.9	10 742.1	1.2		0.9	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	503.4	540.2	36.8		18.4	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	4.5	4.8	0.3	pts	0.7	pts
	Participation rate (%)	65.0	65.1	0.1	pts	-0.1	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment rate

JANUARY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• EMPLOYMENT increased to 10,745,400
• UNEMPLOYMENT increased to 521,200
• UNEMPLOYMENT RATE increased to 4.6%
• PARTICIPATION RATE decreased to 65.0%

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

EMPLOYMENT

• increased by 1,200 to 10,742,100. Full-time employment increased by 33,700 to 7,670,700 and part-time employment decreased by 32,600 to 3,071,400.

UNEMPLOYMENT

• increased by 36,800 to 540,200. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased by 29,900 to 381,300 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased by 6,900 to 158,800.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

• increased by 0.3 percentage points to 4.8%. The male unemployment rate increased by 0.4 percentage points to 4.9%, and the female unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 4.7%.

PARTICIPATION RATE

• increased by 0.1 percentage point to 65.1%.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
February 2009	12 March 2009
March 2009	9 April 2009
April 2009	7 May 2009
May 2009	11 June 2009
June 2009	9 July 2009
July 2009	6 August 2009

ROUNDING

Estimates of monthly change shown on the front cover have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from the rounded estimates. The graphs on the front cover also depict unrounded estimates.


SAMPLING ERRORS

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Because the entire population is not enumerated, the published estimates and the movements derived from them are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of this variability and appear on pages 28 and 29.

The 95% confidence intervals below provide another way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates from sample surveys. The interval bounded by the two limits is the 95% confidence interval, which represents a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

Movements in seasonally adjusted series between December 2008 and January 2009
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	1 200	-59 600	to	62 000
Total Unemployment	36 800	1 600	to	72 000
Unemployment rate	0.3 pts	-0.1 pts	to	0.7 pts
Participation rate	0.1 pts	-0.3 pts	to	0.5 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Steve Wood on Canberra (02) 6252 6525.