The Northern Rivers Times
April 21, 2022
46 BUSINESS NEWS
Unemployment drops to 7.8%; lowest for more than two years The latest Roy Morgan employment series data shows unemployment dropping to its lowest since the pandemic began, down 0.7% points to 7.8% - the lowest since October 2019. However, underemployment increased by almost as much and was up 0.6% points to 8.4%. The moves in the employment market led to unemployment falling 94,000 to 1.13 million Australians (7.8% of the workforce) in March while under-employment increased 93,000 to
1.22 million (8.4% of the workforce). Overall unemployment and under-employment was virtually unchanged at 2.36 million. • Workforce increased 80,000 in March as employers hire more workers: The workforce in March was 14,523,000 (up 80,000 from February) – comprised of 13,390,000 employed Australians (up 174,000) and 1,133,000 unemployed Australians looking for work (down 94,000); • Employment
increased driven by an increase in part-time employment: Australian employment increased by 174,000 to 13,390,000 in March driven by an increase in part-time employment, up 289,000 to 4,712,000. However, full-time employment decreased by 115,000 to 8,678,000; • Unemployment was down in March and is well down on a year ago: 1,133,000 Australians were unemployed (7.8% of the workforce), a decrease of 94,000 from February with fewer people looking for full-
time work (down 76,000 to 387,000) and also fewer people looking for part-time work, down 18,000 to 746,000. • Under-employment was up in March as part-time employment increased: In addition to the unemployed, 1.22 million Australians (8.4% of the workforce) were under-employed – working part-time but looking for more work, an increase of 93,000 (up 0.6% points) from February. When part-time employment increases (up 289,000 in March), underemployment usually increases as well as more people working part-time leads to more people wanting to work more hours. In total 2.36 million Australians (16.2% of the workforce) were either unemployed or under-employed in March, virtually unchanged on February. Nevertheless, this is the lowest combined unemployed and underemployed since prepandemic in November 2019 – 2.23 million (16.1%).
Compared to early March 2020, before the nation-wide lockdown, in March 2022 there were almost 200,000 more Australians either unemployed or under-employed (+0.6% points) even though overall employment (13,390,000) is over 500,000 higher than it was pre-COVID-19 (12,872,000). Roy Morgan’s 7.8% for March is nearly 4% points higher than the ABS estimate for February 2022 of 4.0%. for February counts as employed an additional 130,800 Australians who were working zero hours for ‘economic reasons’ or ‘other reasons’ – such as being forced into isolation for being a close contact addition, the ABS notes 221,800 workers worked zero hours due to illness, injury or sick leave in is 99,200 higher than the average for February from 2016-2021 of 122,600. If these 230,000 non-workers are
added back the ABS unemployment estimate increases to 793,000 (5.7% of the workforce). The ABS also claims there are an additional 926,000 Australians (6.6% of the workforce) under-employed for a total of 1.72 million unemployed or underemployed (12.3% of the workforce). Michele Levine, CEO Roy Morgan, says there is good news for the Morrison Government in Roy Morgan’s March unemployment estimates, but there are also concerns that should be a focus of the current Federal Election campaign: This Roy Morgan survey on Australia’s unemployment and ‘under-employed’* is based on weekly interviews of 820,263 Australians aged 14 and over between January 2007 and March 2022 and includes 6,046 telephone and online interviews in March 2022. *The ‘underemployed’ are those people who are in parttime work or freelancers who are looking for more work.
