Labour Force, Australia

Latest release

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

Reference period
June 2026
Released
23/07/2026
  • Next Release 20/08/2026
    Labour Force, Australia, July 2026
  • Next Release 24/09/2026
    Labour Force, Australia, August 2026
  • Next Release 15/10/2026
    Labour Force, Australia, September 2026
  • View all releases
Release date and time
23/07/2026 11:30am AEST

Key statistics

In seasonally adjusted terms, in June 2026:

  • the employment-to-population ratio increased 0.3ppt to 64.0%.
  • the unemployment rate was 4.4%.

In trend terms, in June 2026:

  • the employment-to-population ratio increased marginally to 64.0%.
  • the unemployment rate was 4.4%.

Main features

New South Wales and Victoria weighting adjustment

In line with our approach to ensuring data quality, we have adjusted the weighting of one rotation group in New South Wales and Victoria. See Survey Impacts and Changes for more information.

Key statistics - Seasonally adjusted
May-26Jun-26Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Employed people14,746,90014,823,30076,3000.5%252,0001.7%
Employment to population ratio63.8%64.0%0.3 ptsna0.0 ptsna
Unemployed people674,100686,80012,7001.9%30,2004.6%
Unemployment rate4.4%4.4%0.1 ptsna0.1 ptsna
Underemployment rate6.3%6.5%0.2 ptsna0.6 ptsna
Participation rate66.7%67.0%0.3 ptsna0.1 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs2,009 million2,014 million5 million0.2%36 million1.8%
Key statistics - Trend
May-26Jun-26Monthly changeMonthly change (%)Yearly changeYearly change (%)
Employed people14,775,10014,807,40032,3000.2%230,8001.6%
Employment to population ratio63.9%64.0%0.0 ptsna-0.1 ptsna
Unemployed people676,500680,8004,3000.6%41,2006.4%
Unemployment rate4.4%4.4%0.0 ptsna0.2 ptsna
Underemployment rate6.2%6.3%0.1 ptsna0.5 ptsna
Participation rate66.8%66.9%0.1 ptsna0.0 ptsna
Monthly hours worked in all jobs2,014 million2,015 million1 million0.0%35 million1.8%

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

Weighting adjustment in New South Wales and Victoria

Rotation group analysis

Survey dates

Employment

In June 2026, employment increased by 76,300 people (0.5%) to 14,823,300 people in seasonally adjusted terms. Full-time employment increased by 29,300 to 10,173,500 people, and part-time employment increased by 47,000 to 4,649,800 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, June 2026.

Employment-to-population ratio

In June 2026, the employment-to-population ratio rose by 0.3ppt to 64.0% in seasonally adjusted terms. The employment-to-population ratio increased by 0.3ppt to 67.7% for males, and increased by 0.2ppt to 60.5% 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, June 2026.

Unemployment

In June 2026, the unemployment rate rose by 0.1ppt to 4.4% in unrounded seasonally adjusted terms, with the number of unemployed people increasing by 12,700 to 686,800 people. The unemployment rate decreased by 0.1ppt to 4.5% for males and increased by 0.2ppt to 4.4% for females. The youth unemployment rate increased by 0.3ppt to 10.7%.

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, June 2026.

Underemployment

In June 2026, the underemployment rate rose by 0.2ppt to 6.5% and the underutilisation rate rose 0.3% to 10.9% 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, June 2026.

Participation

In June 2026, the participation rate rose 0.3ppt to 67.0% in seasonally adjusted terms. The participation rate rose by 0.2ppt to 70.8% for males and rose by 0.4ppt to 63.3% 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, June 2026.

Hours worked

In June 2026, monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 4.9 million hours to 2,014 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, June 2026.

In seasonally adjusted terms, monthly hours worked in all jobs increased by 0.2%, which was weaker than the 0.5% rise in employment.

States and Territories

June 2026 - Seasonally adjusted
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaAustralia
Employed people4,567,4003,814,3003,040,300989,5001,694,600282,20014,823,300
Employed people - monthly change0.9%0.4%-0.1%0.2%1.0%1.2%0.5%
Employment to population ratio63.6%64.2%64.1%61.5%66.2%57.7%64.0%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change0.5 pts0.2 pts-0.2 pts0.1 pts0.6 pts0.6 pts0.3 pts
Unemployment rate4.0%5.1%4.3%4.3%4.2%4.9%4.4%
Unemployment rate - monthly change-0.3 pts0.2 pts0.6 pts0.1 pts-0.3 pts-0.4 pts0.1 pts
Underemployment rate6.3%7.3%6.5%6.7%5.9%6.8%6.5%
Underemployment rate - monthly change0.2 pts0.3 pts0.4 pts0.2 pts0.5 pts-0.3 pts0.2 pts
Participation rate66.2%67.6%67.0%64.3%69.1%60.6%67.0%
Participation rate - monthly change0.3 pts0.3 pts0.2 pts0.1 pts0.3 pts0.4 pts0.3 pts

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

June 2026 - Trend
New South WalesVictoriaQueenslandSouth AustraliaWestern AustraliaTasmaniaNorthern TerritoryAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
Employed people4,561,6003,810,3003,050,000988,4001,690,900281,000148,700280,00014,807,400
Employed people - monthly change0.3%0.2%0.3%0.0%0.2%0.1%0.3%0.3%0.2%
Employment to population ratio63.5%64.1%64.3%61.4%66.0%57.4%69.9%69.7%64.0%
Employment to population ratio - monthly change0.1 pts0.0 pts0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.1 pts0.0 pts
Unemployment rate4.2%5.0%4.1%4.2%4.3%4.9%4.7%4.1%4.4%
Unemployment rate - monthly change-0.1 pts0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts
Underemployment rate6.1%6.9%6.2%6.5%5.6%7.0%4.6%5.5%6.3%
Underemployment rate - monthly change0.1 pts0.1 pts0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.1 pts0.2 pts0.1 pts
Participation rate66.2%67.4%67.1%64.1%69.0%60.4%73.4%72.7%66.9%
Participation rate - monthly change0.1 pts0.1 pts0.1 pts0.0 pts0.0 pts0.1 pts0.1 pts0.1 pts0.1 pts

Data downloads

Educational attendance tables on hold

The ABS are undertaking quality assurance of the full-time education item collected through the Labour Force Survey, and have temporarily paused publishing data on Labour Force Status by Educational Attendance.

Table 014 Labour force status for 15-24 year olds by State, Territory and Educational attendance (full-time) and Table 015 Labour force status for 15-24 year olds by Educational attendance (full-time) and Sex are temporarily suspended, and have been removed from the April and May 2026 releases.

We will resume publishing Tables 014 and 015 pending the outcome of this assurance process.

The educational attendance questions in the Labour Force Survey are not used to derive headline Labour Force estimates. This includes employed people, unemployment rate, participation rate and hours worked.

Labour Force status

Data files

Modelled labour market regions (SA4)

MLF1. Modelled estimates of labour force status, by SA4 (ASGS), Age and Sex (Pivot Table)

Hours worked

Data files

Status in employment

Data files

Underemployment and underutilisation

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 Upcoming changes to Labour Force Survey outputs.

Labour Force Australia – Table name concordance (transition period)

All spreadsheets

All spreadsheets

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.

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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