Australia Yearbook - 2009-10

Unemployed people
In the monthly LFS, people aged 15 years and
over are considered to be unemployed if they
satisfy three criteria: they are not employed; they
are available to start work; and they are taking
active steps to find work.
Two important measures of unemployment are
the number of people unemployed and the
unemployment rate. The unemployment rate,
defined as the number of unemployed people
expressed as a percentage of the labour force,
offers an insight into the level of unutilised labour
resources within the economy.
Movements in the unemployment rate over the
last 20 years have been dominated by the
economic downturn of the early 1990s, the
subsequent period of economic recovery and the
recent global financial crisis. In trend terms, the
unemployment rate peaked at 10.7% in
September 1992, before generally falling from the
mid-1990s to 4.1% in February 2008. Since then,
the unemployment rate has been steadily
increasing (graph 8.34).
For most of the period from June 1989 to
June 2009, the male unemployment rate was
higher than the female unemployment rate,
including from March 2009 to June 2009.
However, from June 1989 to September 1990,
and from August 2003 to January 2009, the female
rate was higher than the male rate.
In conjunction with the decline in the
unemployment rate, the number of unemployed
people has generally fallen from the levels
recorded in the early 1990s although it has
increased sharply over the last year.
Over the past five years the proportion of
unemployed people who have been in long-term
unemployment (i.e. lasting 52 weeks or more)
has steadily decreased, from 20% in 2004–05 to
14% in 2008–09 (table 8.35). In contrast, the
8.34 UNEMPLOYMENT RATE(a)
Males
Females
Persons
%
12
10
8
6
4
Jun
1989
Jun
1994
Jun
1999
Jun
2004
2
Jun
2009
(a) Trend estimates.
Source: Labour Force, Australia (6202.0).
8.35 UNEMPLOYED PERSONS(a), By duration of unemployment
Weeks
2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008–2009
Under 26
%
68.3 68.9 70.8 73.3 73.7
Under 8 %
42.8 41.8 43.4 46.3 43.2
8 to under 26 %
25.5 27.1 27.3 27.0 30.5
26 to under 52 %
12.3 12.9 12.4 11.6 12.4
52 and over %
19.5 18.3 16.9 15.0 13.9
52 to under 104 %
8.0 7.9 7.7 7.4 7.4
104 and over %
11.4 10.3 9.1 7.6 6.6
Persons
'000 539.3 529.4 492.9 471.7 562.2
(a)
Annual averages.
Source: Labour Force, Australia, Detailed – Electronic Delivery
(6291.0.55.001).
256 Year Book Australia 2009–10