Here’s some good news for our economy and the property markets

• The workforce, which comprises employed Australians and those who are unemployed and looking for work, is now 13,650,000, up 195,000 on a year ago.
  A new record of 12,397,000 Australians were employed in January, up 161,000 over the past year;
• The increase in employment was driven by a solid increase in full-time employment of 212,000 to 8,257,000.
  Over the past year part-time employment was down slightly by 51,000 to 4,140,000;
• 1,253,000 Australians (9.2% of the workforce) were unemployed in January, up 34,000 on a year ago and the unemployment rate increased by 0.1%;
• In addition 1,300,000 Australians (9.5% of the workforce) were under-employed, working part-time and looking for more work, a decrease of 71,000 in a year (down 0.7%);
• In total 2,553,000 Australians (18.7% of the workforce) were either unemployed or under-employed in December, a decrease of 37,000 in a year (down 0.6%);
• Roy Morgan’s real unemployment figure of 9.2% for January is significantly higher than the current ABS estimate for December 2018 of 5.0%.

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

Experts opinion

Michele Levine, CEO Roy Morgan, says 2019 has started with some good news as strong growth in full-time jobs over the past year has lifted Australian employment to a new record high:

“The latest Roy Morgan employment estimates show that a record number of nearly 12.4 million Australians were employed in January driven by a rise in full-time employment by over 210,000 over the last year to a new high of over 8.25 million full-time jobs. 

“The strong growth in full-time jobs over the last 12 months continues the trend seen in Roy Morgan’s December employment estimates which also showed strong growth in full-time jobs while part-time employment was slightly down on a year ago; down by just over 50,000 to 4.14 million jobs.

“However, despite the continuing growth in employment, there has been little impact made on the high level of labour under-utilisation in Australia. In January there were 1.253 million unemployed Australians, up by 34,000 on a year ago, and equivalent to 9.2% of the workforce and a further 1.3 million Australians (9.5% of the workforce) are under-employed.

“Taken together over 2.5 million Australians (18.7%) are now unemployed and looking for work or employed part-time and looking for more work (under-employed), down only 37,000 on a year ago. Despite steady economic growth over the past few years analysing the employment trends show that over 2 million Australians have fallen into this category for over seven years since late 2011. 

“Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier this week pledged that a re-elected L-NP Government would create over 1.25 million jobs over the next five years. This sounds great however one needs to consider that in the context of high population growth driven by high immigration over the last five years since February 2014 the L-NP Government has created nearly 1.3 million jobs and unemployment and under-employment has barely changed.

“Australians have consistently indicated to Roy Morgan that they’re comfortable with the current rate of immigration however whichever Government is elected at this year’s Federal election needs to find a way to provide new jobs both for new immigrants to Australia as well as the over 2 million long-term unemployed and under-employed consistently revealed by Roy Morgan’s employment estimates."