Roy Morgan Research
January 20, 2020

Under-employment up in December

Topic: Press Release, Special Poll, Unemployment
Finding No: 8245
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Latest data for the Roy Morgan employment series shows:

In December over 1.2 million Australians were unemployed (8.7% of the workforce), with an additional 1.38 million (9.9% of the workforce) now under-employed.

  • The workforce in December was 13,896,000 – comprised of 12,691,000 employed Australians and 1,205,000 unemployed Australians who are looking for work. The workforce increased year-on-year by 520,000 to 13,896,000. This increase was driven entirely by increases in both full-time and part-time employment compared to this time a year ago.
  • The number of Australians in employment was up 617,000 from a year ago to 12,691,000 in December 2019 – a rise driven by a significant increase in full-time employment of 367,000 to 8,326,000 and an increase in part-time employment of 250,000 to 4,365,000.
  • Unemployment, the number of Australians looking for work, was down 97,000 on a year ago, to 1,205,000, and the unemployment rate was down by 1% point to 8.7%. Under-employment, Australians working part-time and looking for more work, is up from a year ago at 1,383,000 (up 205,000) and is now 9.9% of the workforce, an increase of 1.1% points on a year ago;
  • Roy Morgan’s unemployment figure of 8.7% for December is higher than the current ABS estimate for November 2019 of 5.2%. Roy Morgan’s under-employment estimate of 9.9% is also higher than the current ABS under-employment estimate of 8.3%;
  • Although Roy Morgan’s total unemployment and under-employment of 2,588,000 Australians (18.6% of the workforce) in December, up 108,000 on a year ago, is larger than figures usually estimated, the biennial ABS survey the ‘Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation’, last released in late 2017, claimed the much higher figure of 2.7 million Australians would like a job or to work more hours – including 1.1 million people who wanted a job but were excluded from the Labour Force.

(There is a detailed explanation of the differences between Roy Morgan and ABS figures and methodologies below.)

Michele Levine, CEO Roy Morgan, says employment growth in Australia was strong during 2019 but this wasn’t enough to reduce overall labour under-utilisation which also increased:

Roy Morgan’s latest data shows employment growth of over 600,000 during 2019 driven by large increases in both full-time jobs (+367,000) and part-time jobs (+250,000). However, despite this impressive jobs growth, there are now 2.59 million Australians unemployed or under-employed – up from 2.48 million a year ago.

We have seen consistently during recent years that strong growth in employment has not resulted in sustained drops in unemployment and under-employment. This trend continued throughout last year.

Australians have expressed considerable scepticism towards 2020 with only 12% of Australians expecting 2020 will be a ‘better’ year than 2019 and the first ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Rating of the New Year coming in at only 106.2. This is the lowest Consumer Confidence Rating at the start a year since the GFC in 2009.

The bushfires that have devastated Australia in recent weeks are undoubtedly having a significant impact on Consumer Confidence in the short-term, although the long-term impact is harder to quantify.

However, one clear result of the fires is a significant destruction of infrastructure in many communities. Over the next few months the stimulus packages announced by Federal and State Governments and vows to rebuild promise to provide a substantial boost to local economies and employment prospects.”

Contact Roy Morgan to learn more about Australia’s unemployed and under-employed: who and where they are, and the challenges they face as they search for employment opportunities.

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source October 2005 – December 2019. Average monthly interviews 4,000.

This Roy Morgan survey on Australia’s unemployment and ‘under-employed’* is based on weekly face-to-face interviews of 657,646 Australians aged 14 and over between January 2007 and December 2019, and includes 3,295 face-to-face interviews in December 2019. *The ‘under-employed’ are those people who are in part-time work or freelancers who are looking for more work.

Visit the Roy Morgan Online Store to purchase employment profiles including for Australians who are employedunemployedunder-employedemployed part-timeemployed full-timeretiredstudying and many more.

Roy Morgan Unemployed and ‘Under-employed’* Estimates

*Workforce includes those employed and those looking for work – the unemployed.

For further information:

ContactOfficeMobile
Gary Morgan:+61 3 9224 5213+61 411 129 094
Michele Levine:+61 3 9224 5215+61 411 129 093

Unemployment Data Tables

ROY MORGAN MEASURES REAL UNEMPLOYMENT IN AUSTRALIA
NOT THE ‘PERCEPTION’ OF UNEMPLOYMENT – JUNE 8, 2012

The Roy Morgan Unemployment estimate is obtained by surveying an Australia-wide cross section by face-to-face interviews. A person is classified as unemployed if they are looking for work, no matter when. The results are not seasonally adjusted and provide an accurate measure of monthly unemployment estimates in Australia.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Unemployment estimates are obtained by mostly telephone interviews. Households selected for the ABS Survey are interviewed each month for eight months, with one-eighth of the sample being replaced each month. The first interview is conducted face-to-face. Subsequent interviews are then conducted by telephone.

The ABS classifies a person as unemployed if, when surveyed, they have been actively looking for work in the four weeks up to the end of the reference week and if they were available for work in the reference week.

The ABS classifies a person as employed if, when surveyed, a person worked for one hour or more during the reference week for pay, profit, commission or payment in kind, or even if a person worked for one hour or more without pay in a family business or on a farm.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Unemployment estimates are also seasonally adjusted.

For these reasons the Australian Bureau of Statistics Unemployment estimates are different from the Roy Morgan Unemployment estimate. Gary Morgan's concerns regarding the ABS Unemployment estimate is clearly outlined in his letter to the Australian Financial Review, which was not published.

Margin of Error

The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.

Sample Size Percentage Estimate
40% – 60% 25% or 75% 10% or 90% 5% or 95%
1,000 ±3.0 ±2.7 ±1.9 ±1.3
5,000 ±1.4 ±1.2 ±0.8 ±0.6
7,500 ±1.1 ±1.0 ±0.7 ±0.5
10,000 ±1.0 ±0.9 ±0.6 ±0.4
20,000 ±0.7 ±0.6 ±0.4 ±0.3
50,000 ±0.4 ±0.4 ±0.3 ±0.2

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