Over the year-ending August 2015, the number of people employed in Australia rose 2.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis, reaching 11.765 million people. Feeding into the number of employed persons, the participation rate (the number of people in or actively seeking work) has been growing through the last year, but ticked 0.1% lower in August, to 65.0%.
The chart below shows employment, broken down between full and part time employment numbers, and also shows the participation rate.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
Despite the rising number of persons in employment, there are lingering doubts about the ‘quality’ of that employment. Part time employment is not always a choice of the employed person, with many people looking for more hours.
In August 2015, part time employment accounted for 30.9% of total employment, up from 30.6% a year before. That 0.3% difference does not seem like much, but the part time proportion has, as the chart shows, grown continuously over time. Part time workers totaled 3.634 million persons in August 2015.
Equally relevant is that aggregate worked hours declined in August 2015.
The implication therefore is that with more people in part time work and each of them, on average, working less hours, there is growing under-employment in the Australian economy. While the extent of under-employment can be difficult to measure, what it does mean is that the economy has growth capacity.
However, capacity for growth is reflected in the participation rate. There are different views, but it is generally considered that a participation rate that rises above 66% means the economy has little flexibility for deployment of labour. The implication is that the existing labour force is becoming harder to add to.
Reducing under-employment, by adding to the hours of the part-time cohort is the likely next step in employment development in Australia.
That aside, youth unemployment was recorded at 13.6% in August 2015. Growth in the unemployment of young people is a long-term social risk, but it is also an opportunity to increase the participation rate. Indeed, it might be the only significant prospect for doing so that is available to Australian businesses.
