JANUARY KEY FIGURES

		Dec 2016	Jan 2017	Dec 16 to Jan 17		Jan 16 to Jan 17
Trend
	Employed persons ('000)	11 972.6	11 984.3	11.7		0.8	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	723.4	726.1	2.8		-0.9	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.7	5.7	0.0	pts	-0.1	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.6	64.6	0.0	pts	-0.5	pts
Seasonally Adjusted
	Employed persons ('000)	11 984.7	11 998.2	13.5		0.9	%
	Unemployed persons ('000)	739.6	720.2	-19.3		-5.0	%
	Unemployment rate (%)	5.8	5.7	-0.1	pts	-0.3	pts
	Participation rate (%)	64.7	64.6	-0.1	pts	-0.6	pts

Employed Persons

Unemployment Rate

JANUARY KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 11,700 to 11,984,300.
• Unemployment increased 2,800 to 726,100.
• Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.7%.
• Participation rate remained steady at 64.6%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 3.6 million hours to 1,676.0 million hours.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

• Employment increased 13,500 to 11,998,200. Full-time employment decreased 44,800 to 8,125,700 and part-time employment increased 58,300 to 3,872,500.
• Unemployment decreased 19,300 to 720,200. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 16,000 to 511,000 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased 3,300 to 209,200.
• Unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pts to 5.7%.
• Participation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 64.6%.
• Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 10.2 million hours to 1,682.7 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
February 2017	16 March 2017
March 2017	13 April 2017
April 2017	18 May 2017
May 2017	15 June 2017
June 2017	20 July 2017
July 2017	17 August 2017

ANNUAL SEASONAL RE-ANALYSIS

The annual seasonal re-analysis of the Labour Force series will be conducted on estimates up to March 2017. The seasonally adjusted and trend estimates in the March 2017 issue, which will be released on 13 April 2017, will reflect minor adjustments made as a result of this annual review process (for more information see Explanatory Note 33).

As part of the 2017 re-analysis, for which there will be a short article in the next issue, the ABS will be specifically reviewing the length of seasonal filters that are used in Labour Force series. Any changes to the lengths of seasonal filters for specific series are expected to provide more stable estimates of seasonal factors, thereby reducing the average size of revisions. As a single seasonal filter must be applied across the entire history of a series, any changes to the filter will lead to a one-off minor revision across the length of the series. The size of revisions are generally expected to be small.


ROUNDING

Estimates of changes shown on the front cover and used in the commentary have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movement obtained from the rounded estimates. The graphs on the front cover also depict unrounded estimates.


SAMPLING ERROR

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Published estimates and movements are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of sampling variability. The interval bounded by two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates. There is a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

MOVEMENTS IN SEASONALLY ADJUSTED SERIES BETWEEN DECEMBER 2016 AND JANUARY 2017
	Monthly change	95% Confidence interval
Total Employment	13 500	-45 300	to	72 300
Total Unemployment	-19 300	-58 100	to	19 500
Unemployment rate	-0.1 pts	-0.5 pts	to	0.3 pts
Participation rate	-0.1 pts	-0.5 pts	to	0.3 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, email <client.services@abs.gov.au> or contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.