According to the ABS, November 2015 data shows that an increase in employment has contributed to the trend employment to population ratio rising over the year from 60.6 per cent to 61.3 per cent, while the unemployment rate has remained relatively stable over the year, decreasing from 6.2 per cent to 6.0 per cent.
The ABS reported that strong growth in employment has continued with 293,000 more people were employed in November 2015 than in November 2014; an increase of 2.5 per cent.
Over the past month, trend employment increased by 25,300 persons to 11,855,800 persons, which translates into a monthly growth rate of 0.21 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 November 2015 was 5.8 per cent (down 0.1 percentage points) and the labour force participation rate was 65.3 per cent (up 0.3 percentage points).
The seasonally adjusted number of persons employed increased by 71,400 in November 2015, while the number of persons unemployed decreased by 2,800.
The ABS seasonally adjusted monthly hours worked in all jobs series decreased slightly in November 2015, down 12.7 million hours (0.8 per cent) to 1,645.9 million hours, the ABS reported.
