August Labour Force Statistics

Labour force statistics are out for August 2022, and it’s all good news.

⭐️ Unemployment was 3.5% (⬆️0.1%)
⭐️ Participation was 66.6% (⬆️ 0.2%)
⭐️ Underemployment was 5.9% (⬇️ 0.1%)
⭐️ Employment to Population ratio was 64.3% (⬆️0.1%)

Don’t get distracted by the headline unemployment figure. It’s easy to see employment going up and think things are worse but you’d be wrong. The unemployment rate is up due to more people looking for work. There were actually 33,500 more people in work August than July 2022.

Underemployment also dropped to 5.9% which meas labour underutilisation was steady at a 40 year low of 9.4%.

These figures reflect an employment market that remains very strong. I don’t think we’ll see any change in the RBA’s strategy off the back of these numbers.