2.394m Australians unemployed or under-employed in November

The latest data for the Roy Morgan employment series for November shows:

• The workforce is 13,174,000, up 128,000 on a year ago, comprised of employed and unemployed;
  
  
• 1.288 million Australians were unemployed (9.8% of the workforce); an increase of 89,000 (up 0.6%) on a year ago. In addition 1.106 million Australians (8.4% of the workforce) are now under-employed, working part-time and looking for more work, a rise of 6,000 in a year;
  
  
• 11,886,000 Australians were employed in November – an increase of 39,000 over the past year (an average of about 3,000 jobs added per month);
  
  
• The small increase in employment over the past year was driven by an increase in part-time employment which rose 70,000 to 3,967,000 while full-time employment decreased 31,000 to 7,919,000;
  
  
• Roy Morgan real unemployment figures of 9.8% for November are substantially higher than the current ABS estimate for October 2017 of 5.4%.

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source October 2005 – November 2017. Average monthly interviews 4,000.

Gary Morgan, Executive Chairman, Roy Morgan, said jobs growth has continued to slow in the latter half of 2017 with year-over-year jobs growth in November the lowest since 2016:

“Today’s Roy Morgan employment estimates for November show employment growth of only 39,000 jobs since November 2016 – the slowest year-over-year jobs growth since December last year and continuing a trend seen in the last five months of slower jobs growth.

“Over the past five months (July to November) monthly year-over-year jobs growth has averaged only 138,000 jobs over a year ago, just a third of the jobs growth throughout the first six months of the year which averaged more than 410,000 new jobs year-over-year from January to June.

“The slowing jobs growth will be a huge concern for the over 2 million Australians unemployed or under-employed and looking for work, or looking for more work. In November 2.4 million (18.2% of the workforce) Australians are now unemployed – 1.3 million (9.8%); or under-employed – 1.1 million (8.4%).

“It has now been more than 2 years, or 26 straight months, that more than 2 million Australians have been unemployed or under-employed. It is this ‘slack’ in the Australian labour market that is responsible for the low wage growth mentioned by the RBA this week in their Statement explaining their decision to leave interest rates unchanged at 1.5%.

“While much attention focuses on the headline unemployment figure it is critical to recognise the real measures for a country’s economic wellbeing are the workforce, the number of employed people, and particularly the number employed to their fullest extent, i.e., not under-employed (looking for more work).

“The Roy Morgan employment series tracks these measures, and shows unambiguously that while there is growth in jobs, that growth is not keeping up with population growth, and the growing and the growing part-time nature is leaving a real ‘opportunity gap’ whereby on top of the 1,288,000 who are unemployed (no job) there are another more than a million willing and able to work more.

From this week’s RBA Statement:

’However, wage growth remains low. This is likely to continue for a while yet, although the stronger conditions in the labour market should see some lift in wage growth over time.’

“In their statement the RBA refers to a strengthening labour market but as recent Roy Morgan employment estimates have shown employment growth has moderated over the past few months. If the trend of the past few months continues the RBA will be unlikely to see any wage growth over the next year.”

This Roy Morgan survey on Australia’s unemployment and ‘under-employed’* is based on weekly face-to-face interviews of 560,630 Australians aged 14 and over between January 2007 – November 2017 and includes 5,089 face-to-face interviews in November 2017.

*The ‘under-employed’ are those people who are in part-time work or consultants who are looking for more work. (Unfortunately the ABS does not release this figure in their monthly unemployment survey results).

Roy Morgan Unemployed and ‘Under-employed’* Estimates

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

For further information:

Unemployment Data Tables