This Roy Morgan survey on Australia’s unemployment and ‘under-employed’* is based on weekly face-to-face interviews of 547,424 Australians aged 14 and over between January 2007 – August 2017 and includes 3,709 face-to-face interviews in August 2017.

2.565 million (19.7%) Australians were unemployed or under-employed in August – the 23rd straight month more than 2 million Australians were looking for work or looking for more work;





11,685,000 Australians were employed in August – an increase of 162,000 over the past year (this represents an average of 13,500 jobs added per month);





The increase in employment over the past year was driven by a large jump in part-time employment which rose 535,000 to 4,247,000 more than offsetting a decrease in full-time employment which fell 373,000 to 7,438,000 – and now at its lowest for the year;





Roy Morgan real unemployment figures of 10.2% are substantially higher than the current ABS estimate for July 2017 (5.6%).

: Roy Morgan Single Source October 2005 – August 2017. Average monthly interviews 4,000.

Gary Morgan, Executive Chairman, Roy Morgan Research, says Australian employment is growing but it’s entirely down to an increase in part-time jobs:

“The Australian economy has generated new jobs over the past year with a net 162,000 new jobs created since August 2016 – however the large increase in part-time jobs (up 535,000 or about 45,000 per month) obscures the loss of full-time jobs (down 373,000, just over 30,000 per month). “The latest Roy Morgan unemployment estimate of 10.2% is the highest its been since last August but unemployment is typically high in August. What is different this year is the higher number of Australians who are under-employed. “Although the trends over the past year have been mixed, analysing longer-term employment trends in Australia shows that over the past 17 years the proportion of working age Australians employed has increased to 59.6% in 2017 (up from 54.7% in 2000) and both full-time and part-time employment have increased as a proportion of the population over the last 17 years. “The long-term trends of the Australian workforce show consistent growth across all components of the workforce – overall employment is up, full-time employment is up, part-time employment is up and unfortunately both unemployment and under-employment are up as well. These long-term trends are covered fully in the recent Roy Morgan release – ‘It’s Official: Australia is ‘on the move’ employment-wise’.

This Roy Morgan survey on Australia’s unemployment and ‘under-employed’* is based on weekly face-to-face interviews of 547,424 Australians aged 14 and over between January 2007 – August 2017 and includes 3,709 face-to-face interviews in August 2017.

*The ‘under-employed’ are those people who are in part-time work or consultants who are looking for more work. (Unfortunately the ABS does not release this figure in their monthly unemployment survey results).



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