Australia Yearbook - 2001

220 Year Book Australia 2001
Persons employed
People are considered to be employed if they
were in paid work for one hour or more in the
reference period. Those people who have a job
or a business, but were absent from work in the
reference week, are also considered to be
employed. This section contains information
about people who are employed, including their
status in employment and whether they worked
full-time or part-time. The section also includes
information about people who are
underemployed, that is, people who work
part-time but would like to work more hours.
Relating employment levels to population levels
enables the evaluation of the strength of job
growth as compared to population growth.
The measure relating these two levels is the
employment/population ratio. Its usefulness lies
in the fact that, while movements in the
employment level reflect net changes in the levels
of persons holding jobs, movements in the ratio
reflect net changes in the number of persons
employed relative to changes in the size of the
population. The overall employment/population
ratio rose from 57.7% in 1994–95 to 59.0% in
1999–2000 (table 6.8).
The age groups showing the most notable
increases over recent years have been 15–19 year
olds (to 48.8% in 1999–2000), 20–24 year olds
(to 74.2%) and 55–59 year olds (to 56.5%). For
males, the highest ratio in 1999–2000 was for
those aged 35–44 (86.8%), while for females,
those aged 20–24 showed the highest proportion
employed (70.6%).
6.8 EMPLOYED PERSONS, Employment/Population Ratios(a)
1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99
1999–00
Age group (years)
%
%
%
%
%
%
MALES
15–19 45.8 46.1 46.3 45.3 46.1 47.8
20–24 76.1 76.1 75.3 74.8 76.4 77.6
25–34 84.8 86.0 85.5 85.6 85.6 86.0
35–44 86.3 87.0 86.4 86.8 86.9 86.8
45–54 83.6 83.5 82.8 82.0 82.8 83.2
55–59 66.1 66.0 66.5 66.5 67.6 68.0
60–64 43.1 42.7 42.2 42.8 43.1 43.9
Over 64 9.5 9.4 9.5 10.1 9.4 9.6
Total 67.0 67.4 66.9 66.8 67.1 67.5
FEMALES
15–19 47.2 47.7 47.1 46.7 48.3 49.8
20–24 68.8 69.8 68.5 68.2 69.3 70.6
25–34 62.3 62.9 62.8 64.2 64.0 64.7
35–44 66.4 67.6 67.1 65.7 66.1 66.9
45–54 62.7 64.0 64.3 64.9 66.2 67.2
55–59 36.7 39.0 40.1 40.0 41.6 44.5
60–64 15.7 17.1 18.0 18.4 18.0 19.8
Over 64 2.4 2.7 2.8 2.9 3.0 3.2
Total 48.6 49.5 49.3 49.4 49.9 50.8
PERSONS
15–19 46.5 46.9 46.7 46.0 47.2 48.8
20–24 72.5 73.0 71.9 71.5 72.9 74.2
25–34 73.5 74.4 74.1 74.8 74.7 75.3
35–44 76.3 77.2 76.7 76.2 76.4 76.8
45–54 73.4 73.9 73.7 73.5 74.6 75.2
55–59 51.6 52.7 53.5 53.5 54.8 56.5
60–64 29.4 29.9 30.0 30.6 30.5 31.9
Over 64 5.5 5.6 5.7 6.1 5.8 6.0
Total 57.7 58.3 58.0 57.9 58.3 59.0
(a) The employment/population ratio for any group is the number of employed persons expressed as a percentage of the civilian
population aged 15 and over in the same group.
Source: Labour Force Survey.