Employment and unemployment

In trend terms, in April 2023:

• unemployment rate remained at 3.6%.
• participation rate remained at 66.7%.
• employment increased to 13,878,900.
• employment to population ratio decreased to 64.2%.
• underemployment rate remained at 6.1%.
• monthly hours worked increased to 1,933 million.

Detailed monthly and quarterly Labour Force Survey data, including hours, regions, families, job search, job duration, casual, industry and occupation

In 2020-21:

• The most common reason women were unavailable start a job or work more hours within four weeks was 'Caring for children', while for men it was 'Long-term sickness or disability'.
• The most important incentives for people to seek a job or more hours were the "ability to work part-time hours" and "finding a job that matches skills and experience."

There were 2,160,000 public sector employees at the end of June 2022 comprising:

• 254,000 employees in Commonwealth government;
• 1,713,500 in state government; and
• 192,500 in local government.

Total public sector cash wages and salaries in 2021-22 was $193,960.9 million.

In June 2022:

• There were 7.3 million families, an increase of 1 million since June 2012
• 1 in 7 families were one parent families (14.2%)
• There were 1.4 million jobless families (19.2%)
• Of the 6.2 million couple families, 1.7% were same-sex couples

In Feb 2022:

• 821,000 part-time workers were underemployed - they preferred and were available to work more hours (20.1 per cent of all part-time workers).
• About half of the underemployed part-time workers preferred to work full-time hours (47.5 per cent).
• Half of the underemployed part-time workers preferred an extra 10 hours or less (median extra hours preferred).
• 44.4 per cent of underemployed part-time workers spent a year or more working in a job with insufficient hours.  

During the year ending February 2022:

• 1.8 million people were not working but wanted to work (potential workers).
• 1.3 million people (or 9.5% of employed people) changed jobs, the highest annual job mobility rate since 2012.
• The annual retrenchment rate was 1.5%, the lowest annual rate on record (since 1972).

In February 2022, there were 20.7 million people in the usually resident civilian population who were aged 15 years or over, of whom:

• 13.4 million were employed.
• 1.8 million were not working but wanted to work (potential workers).
• 5.5 million did not want to work or were permanently not able to work (not potential workers).

• There were 3.9 million retirees.
• 55% of people over 55 were retired, up from 53% in 2016-17.
• Average retirement age (of all retirees) was 55.4 years.
• Half a million people intend to retire within 5 years.
• Average age people intend to retire is 65.5 years.
• Pension was the main income source for most retirees.
   

Employment in renewable energy activities reports on full time equivalent employment by state and territory and type of renewable energy

Detailed labour force data collected on a quarterly basis

Summary results following the process of rebenchmarking the Labour Force Survey data to the final 2016 Census based Estimated Resident Population