Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows a 0.4 percentage point decrease in unemployment to 3.7 per cent in February 2024.
The number of employed people grew by 116,000 people, while the number of unemployed people dropped by 52,000.
ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said this was around where it had been six months earlier.
The increase in employment in February followed a weaker-than-usual outcome in December (down 62,000), and a modest increase in January (up 15,000).
This equates to 70,000 more employed people in February than there were in November and a growth rate consistent with the underlying trend.
The large increase in employment in February also followed larger-than-usual numbers of people in December and January who had a job that they were waiting to start or to return to. This translated into a larger-than-usual flow of people into employment in February and even more so than in February last year.
“In 2022 and 2023, around 4.3 per cent of employed people in February had not been employed in January,” Jarvis said. “In 2024 this was higher, at 4.7 per cent, and well above the pre-pandemic average for 2015 to 2020 of around 3.9 per cent.
“In contrast, we again only saw around 3.1 per cent of employed people in January leaving employment by February, which was similar to last year and has remained relatively constant over time.
“This shows that there is a wider gap than we would usually see between the numbers of people entering employment and leaving employment.”
Looking into March, Jarvis said the number of people in February waiting to start work this month was back to around what we would usually see.
Given the relatively large increase in employment, the seasonally adjusted employment-to-population ratio rose 0.4 percentage points to 64.2 per cent and the participation rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 66.7 per cent. While higher than December and January, they remained below their historical highs of 64.4 per cent and 67.0 per cent in November.
“Both the employment-to-population ratio and the participation rate in February were around where they were in August 2023, given employment growth and population growth have both been around 1.4 per cent over the past six months, and there has been relatively little change in unemployment,” Jarvis said.
Meanwhile, Roy Morgan is claiming that ‘real’ unemployment was virtually unchanged at 1,436,000 people - or 9.2 per cent of the workforce- while an additional 1,501,000 Australians (9.6 per cent) were under-employed. Overall, this means 2.94 million Australians (18.8 per cent) were unemployed or under-employed in February.
The discrepancy in figures between the ABS and Roy Morgan likely arises from the collection and calculation of datasets. Roy Morgan conducts weekly interviews of 961,094 Australians aged 14 and over between January 2007 and February 2024, including 5,982 telephone and online interviews in February 2024.
ABS conducts surveys monthly, covering approximately 24,000 dwellings resulting in a sample of approximately 50,000 people.
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said total Australian unemployment or under-employment dropped in February but has now averaged 3 million (19.4% of the workforce) for the last six months, up from 2.83 million (18.7%) for the previous six months.
“Longer-term trends show that total Australian unemployment or under-employment averaged 3 million over the last six months compared to 2.84 million over the previous six months before that, indicating a sustained rise in labour under-utilisation,” Levine said.
“The biggest driver is the high population growth which has grown by 761,000 from a year ago – more than double the annual average over the last 25 years of 284,000 – which has led to increases in all the key labour force statistics compared to a year ago.”
In the same time, Australia’s workforce grew by 626,000 to over 15.6 million. Levine said employment growth over the last year has grown at more than three times the 25-year annual average of 230,000.
“The growth has been tilted towards full-time employment, up 410,000 to a record high of 9,359,000 while part-time employment grew 301,000 to 4,869,000.
“The sustained increase in labour-underutilisation in recent months shows 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.”
Returning to the ABS, seasonally adjusted monthly hours worked rose by 2.8 per cent according to the national bureau.
“There was a large increase in hours worked in February, as people started or returned to work,” Jarvis said.
“This followed a six-month period since July of generally declining hours worked. Hours worked in February were around where they had been in August, but still below where they had been in the middle of 2023.”