The latest ABS data to December 2015 shows that trend employment increased to 11,893,800, unemployment decreased to 734,300, the unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pts to 5.8% and the participation rate increased less than 0.1 pts to 65.2%. But let’s not cheer – yet!
Their media release says that the strong trend growth in employment has continued.
“The trend shows that around 312,000 more people were employed in December 2015 than in December 2014. Full-time employment growth was stronger than part-time over the year, increasing by 186,600 people,” said Bruce Hockman, General Manager of ABS’ Macroeconomic Statistics Division.
The increase in employment has contributed to the trend employment to population ratio rising over the year from 60.6 per cent to 61.4 per cent, while the unemployment rate has decreased over the year from 6.2 per cent to 5.8 per cent.
Over the past month, trend employment increased by 27,500 persons to 11,893,800 persons, which translates into a monthly growth rate of 0.23 per cent. This growth rate was above the monthly average over the past 20 years (0.15 per cent), and continues the trend in relatively strong employment growth that has been seen since December 2014.
The trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December 2015 was 5.8 per cent (down 0.1 percentage points, based on unrounded estimates) and the labour force participation rate was 65.1 per cent (down 0.1 percentage points, based on unrounded estimates).
The seasonally adjusted number of persons employed was virtually unchanged in December 2015, while the number of persons unemployed decreased by 10,900.
The ABS seasonally adjusted monthly hours worked in all jobs series was relatively unchanged at 1,645.2 million hours, the ABS reported.
Two points. First the reliability of the revised methodology still remains in doubt, and we continue to see a rotation towards lower-services roles (e.g. healthcare) and away from economically productive roles. We think the underlying economic issues are being masked by the good top-line result. And for perspective we are still seeing unemployment among younger Australians horribly higher (above 12%), and the overall rate is still above 5.4% which is where it was in January 2013.
Finally the state data shows falls in NSW, VIC, and QLD, but rises in WA, TAS, and ACT.
