Participation Rate

The participation rate is a headline figure in Labour Force, Australia, the monthly release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It comes from the monthly Labour Force Survey of about 24,000 dwellings and 50,000 people, covering resident civilians aged 15 and over. For any group, it equals the labour force (employed plus unemployed people seeking and available for work) divided by that population, times 100. It does not measure the share with jobs (that is the employment-to-population ratio, employed people divided by the same population) or unemployment alone.

Interviews run over the 2 weeks starting on the Sunday between the 5th and 11th each month, asking about the prior week (the reference week). December interviews start 4 weeks after November interviews start, January interviews start 5 weeks after December interviews start, with occasional operational changes.

It is released at 11:30am Canberra time on the fourth Thursday after the reference month during modernisation, with employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours. It covers Australia and the states and territories in original, seasonally adjusted and trend versions. Revisions follow quarterly population updates in February, May, August and November, monthly seasonal adjustment and 5-yearly Census rebases; trend guides direction best.

It rises when the labour force grows faster than population and falls when people leave the labour force or population grows faster.

• Employed: captures anyone who worked 1 hour or more for pay or in family business, plus employees and owners temporarily away.
• Unemployed: captures those without work who actively looked in the past 4 weeks and were available, or waited to start within 4 weeks.
• Not in the labour force: captures people neither employed nor unemployed, such as retirees, carers, students not seeking work and those unable to work.
• Civilian population aged 15 and over: the base; it excludes defence forces, diplomats, overseas residents and foreign forces stationed locally.
• Breakdowns: these show working age 15 to 64 and youth 15 to 24, states and city versus regions, and hours.

In April 2020 participation fell 2.4 points from 66.0% to 63.5% while unemployment rose 1.0 points from 5.2% to 6.2%. Employment fell by 594,300 to 12,418,700 but unemployment rose by only 104,500 to 823,300 because many stopped searching and left the labour force.

The fall hit women (down 2.9 points to 58.4%) and men (down 1.9 points to 68.9%). It also hit people aged 15 to 64 (down 2.7 points to 76.0%) and youth aged 15 to 24 (down 5.6 points to 62.9%). Restrictions curbed work and search rules were paused, so those who stopped were not in the labour force and trend was paused.

1. Classify people: assign each respondent aged 15 and over to employed, unemployed or not in the labour force. Use the reference week plus the 4 week active search and availability test.

1. Weight to population: start each respondent at the state weight (445 people in New South Wales). Then blend prior 6 months with current month (7 months) through composite estimation and align to population benchmarks. Eight groups stay for 8 months with monthly swap and seven-eighths overlap.

1. Add up and divide: add employed and unemployed to get the labour force. Then divide by the civilian population aged 15 and over and multiply by 100.

1. Adjust and round: publish original, seasonally adjusted and trend (a smoothed series) versions; seasonal adjustment splits original into trend, seasonal and irregular parts as O=T*S*I. Round the rate to 1 decimal place and report moves in points. For example 14,600,000 divided by 21,800,000 times 100 gives 67.0%, rising to 67.4% means 0.4 points. Derive trend with a 13-term Henderson average, using surrogates for the last 6 months.