AUGUST KEY FIGURES



Jul 20 Aug 20 Jul 20 to Aug 20 Aug 19 to Aug 20 Seasonally Adjusted Employed people ('000) 12,472.4 12,583.4 111.0 -2.6% Unemployed people ('000) 1,008.3 921.8 -86.5 28.8% Unemployment rate (%) 7.5 6.8 -0.7 pts 1.6 pts Underemployment rate (%) 11.2 11.2 -0.1 pts 2.7 pts Participation rate (%) 64.7 64.8 0.1 pts -1.4 pts Monthly hours worked in all jobs ('000 000) 1,681.7 1,683.4 1.6 -5.1%

EMPLOYED PEOPLE







UNEMPLOYMENT RATE







SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES

Employment increased 111,000 to 12,583,400 people. Full-time employment increased 36,200 to 8,584,500 people and part-time employment increased 74,800 to 3,998,900 people.

Unemployment decreased 86,500 to 921,800 people.

Unemployment rate decreased 0.7 pts to 6.8%.

Underemployment rate remained steady at 11.2%.

Underutilisation rate decreased 0.7 pts to 18.0%.

Participation rate increased by 0.1 pts to 64.8%.

Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 1.6 million hours to 1,683.4 million hours.



NOTES



FORTHCOMING ISSUES



Issue Release Date September 2020 15 October 2020 October 2020 19 November 2020 November 2020 17 December 2020 December 2020 21 January 2021 January 2021 18 February 2021 February 2021 18 March 2021



SURVEY RESPONSE REMAINS HIGH



Response remained high in August, with a similar level of response to July. For more information, please refer to ‘



The ABS would like to thank Australians for their continued support in responding to our surveys during such a difficult time, given how critically important this information is.





NEW ABS WEBSITE TO GO LIVE ON MONDAY (21 SEPTEMBER)



The ABS will be launching it's new website next Monday (21 September 2020). This issue of Labour Force, Australia will be the last released to the current website, with next Thursday's detailed labour force release to be published on the new website. As a result of the switch-over to the new website, the ABS website (and ABS Beta website) is expected to be unavailable between 11am and 1pm on Saturday 19 September.



As previously advised, as part of this move to a new ABS website the Labour Force Survey releases are being redesigned (see the New ABS website and changes to Labour Force Survey publications note for more information on the design and content). On the new ABS website, there will now be two labour force releases (previously three) of monthly Labour Force Survey data: Labour Force, Australia - which will continue to be the headline release (see Labour Force, Australia on the ABS Beta website to see what it will look like)

Labour Force, Australia Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - which will contain all spreadsheets and pivot tables currently published in both the monthly and quarterly detailed releases (see Labour Force, Australia, Detailed on the ABS Beta website to see what it will look like)

At all points during the transition abs.gov.au will remain your official source of statistics. However, other URL's within the website will be changing so bookmarks will need to be updated. Catalogue numbers will also no longer appear in release titles on the new website, however you will still be able to search for content using catalogue numbers. For a short transition period, all releases will include a note indicating the catalogue number the release was previously published under.



See Welcome to the new ABS website for more information about the new ABS website and the changes that have been made.





SURVEY REFERENCE WEEK AND COLLECTION TIMELINE



The August Labour Force Survey was run in respect of the two weeks from Sunday 2 August to Saturday 15 August, and collected over the three weeks from Sunday 9 August to Saturday 29 August.











QUARTERLY POPULATION REBENCHMARKING



The ABS has revised the original Labour Force series for the previous 25 months to reflect the latest available preliminary and final estimates of Estimated Resident Population. This quarterly process ensures that the Labour Force series promptly reflects any change in population trends and minimises the size of revisions that can occur when the series are rebenchmarked following each Census of Population and Housing.



In response to COVID-19 related changes in travel, the ABS is now revising preliminary Net Overseas Migration estimates more frequently. Net Overseas Migration estimates are a component of population estimates, from which Labour Force benchmarks are produced. These revisions have been incorporated into the quarterly rebenchmarking revisions. For more information, please refer to 'Net Overseas Migration revisions in Labour Force benchmarks during COVID-19'.





ROUNDING



Estimates of changes in the commentary have been calculated using un-rounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movement obtained from the rounded estimates. Graphs also depict un-rounded estimates.





COMPARING SEASONALLY ADJUSTED SERIES



Seasonally adjusted series each have their own seasonal factors. As a result, some component estimates may not sum to higher level estimates (e.g. the sum of the state and territory employment estimates will be different to national employment 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 JULY 2020 AND AUGUST 2020



Monthly change 95% Confidence interval Total Employment 111,000 51,000 to 171,000 Total Unemployment -86,500 -130,700 to -42,300 Unemployment rate -0.7 pts -1.1 pts to -0.3 pts Participation rate 0.1 pts -0.3 pts to 0.5 pts



Response remained high in August, with a similar level of response to July. For more information, please refer to ‘ Insights from the original data’ The ABS would like to thank Australians for their continued support in responding to our surveys during such a difficult time, given how critically important this information is.Estimates of changes in the commentary have been calculated using un-rounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movement obtained from the rounded estimates. Graphs also depict un-rounded estimates.Seasonally adjusted series each have their own seasonal factors. As a result, some component estimates may not sum to higher level estimates (e.g. the sum of the state and territory employment estimates will be different to national employment estimates).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.