Roy Morgan Update August 12, 2025: Consumer Confidence, Unemployment and Working From Home in Australia

In this week's Market Research Update, we present the latest data on Consumer Confidence, Unemployment and Working From Home in Australia.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

Today we have the latest Roy Morgan real unemployment estimates for July as well as some important information on ‘Working From Home’ with the Victorian Government vowing to legislate to make ‘Working From Home’ a right for those able to do so for at least two days a week.

But first today, all eyes have been on today’s Reserve Bank meeting at which the Bank decided to cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.6%.

The decision was widely expected in recent weeks, and Consumer Confidence has generally improved over the last month, but last week, the week before the Reserve Bank decision, the index softened.

The latest ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence based on interviews conducted throughout last week, was down 1.3 points to 89.3.

The main driver of this week’s fall was weaker buying sentiment with only 24% of Australians saying now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items, down 2% points from a week earlier.

Today’s interest rate cut by the RBA will be expected to provide a further boost to Consumer Confidence in the weeks ahead.

There was good news in terms of Inflation Expectations. This week ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations dropped back 0.2% to 5%.

This means Australians now expect inflation of 5% over each of the next two years.

Now to employment and unemployment – the measure that really matters.

‘Real Unemployment’ in July is 10.3%, virtually unchanged on a month ago - so, an estimated 1.64 million Australians are unemployed – looking for work.

Overall employment in July increased by 53,000 to almost 14.3 million.

However, there was a shift in the underlying dynamics of the labour market in July with part-time employment increasing 75,000 to almost 5.1 million, and full-time employment down 22,000 to just under 9.2 million.

There is often a strong correlation between levels of part-time work and under-employment, and this correlation was evident in the Roy Morgan employment estimates for July.

In July the increase in part-time employment coincided with an increase in people wanting to work more hours – under-employment – which increased a significant 158,000 to 1.74 million.

Following this increase, total unemployment and under-employment – what we might call workforce under-utilisation – was up 0.9% to 21.2% of the workforce in July – an estimated 3.38 million people.

This is the eighth straight month – stretching back to late last year – that total unemployment and under-employment has been above 3 million.

Next week’s Economic Reform Roundtable, convened by Treasurer Jim Chalmers, is meant to look at ways to improve productivity, enhance economic resilience and strengthen budget sustainability.

The Roundtable will bring together a mix of leaders from business, unions, civil society, government and other experts.

Tackling Australia’s continuing high level of labour under-utilisation – impacting over 20% of the workforce (over 3 million people) – must be front and centre at the Roundtable.

One of the biggest topics for discussion at the Economic Reform Roundtable will be the benefits, and drawbacks, of ‘Working From Home’ – especially given the Victorian Government has vowed to legislate a right for Victorian workers’ to have the ability to ‘Work From Home’ at least two days a week – when reasonable.

Newly compiled research from Roy Morgan shows today more than 6.7 million (46% of employed Australians either paid or unpaid) are working from home at least some of the time, while 54% do not.

This research is based on approximately 40,000 interviews annually with employed Australians since the outbreak of COVID-19.

This is a detailed study of Work From Home allowing for deep exploration of the dynamics of Working From Home, by employee characteristics, like Socio-Economic Status, personal and household income, life stage, mortgage status, and organisational characteristics like job type, industry size and location.

A slim majority of full-time employees (51%) ‘work from home’ compared to just over a third of part-time employees (36%).

Importantly, a majority of workers in the metropolitan areas of Sydney (55%), Melbourne (52%) and Canberra (51%) ‘work from home’.

‘Working from home’ rates are lower in the smaller capital cities led by Hobart (45%) and Adelaide (44%) and followed by Brisbane (43%) and Perth (40%).

In contrast, regional areas show lower adoption of working from home, 40% in regional Queensland, 39% in Regional NSW, 37% in regional Victoria, 36% in regional Tasmania, 34% in Darwin/Alice Springs (NT), 33% in regional South Australia, and 31% in regional Western Australia report working from home.