Three million Australians aged 14 or more were either jobless or under-employed in January 2024, according to new data from Roy Morgan.
Unemployed Australians now sit at 1,382,000 - or 8.9% of the workforce - following an increase of 18,000 people, while an additional 1,618,000 people (10.4%) were under-employed.
“Longer-term trends show that total Australian unemployment or under-employment averaged 3.03 million over the last six months compared to 2.8 million over the previous six months, indicating a sustained rise in labour under-utilisation,” Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said.
“The biggest driver is the high population growth which has grown by a record 896,000 from a year ago – more than three times higher than the annual average over the last 25 years of 280,000 – which has led to increases in all the key labour force statistics compared to a year ago.”
The workforce in January was 15,532,000, which is down 7,000 from December, but up a massive 507,000 from a year ago. This comprised of 14,150,000 employed Australians - down 25,000 from a month ago - and 1,382,000 unemployed Australians looking for work.
Full-time employment drove the overall decrease, down 37,000 to 9,205,000, while part-time employment increased 12,000 to 4,945,000.
There were 877,000 Australians looking for part-time work - up by 49,000 people - and 505,000 now looking for full-time work - down by 31,000.
Compared to early March 2020, before the nation-wide lockdown, in January 2024 there were over 850,000 more Australians either unemployed or under-employed (+3.7% points) even though overall employment (14,150,000) is nearly 1.3 million higher than it was pre-COVID-19 (12,872,000).
“Employment growth over the last year has grown at more than three times the 25-year annual average of 228,000,” Levine said. “The employment growth has been tilted towards part-time employment, up 428,000 to 4,945,000 while full-time employment grew 304,000 to 9,205,000.
“The sustained increase in labour-underutilisation in recent months shows that the labour market is struggling to provide the right jobs for all those joining the workforce. Tackling this continuing high level of unemployment and under-employment must be the number one priority for the Federal Government over the next year heading into the next election due in early 2025.”