Australian employment hit a record high of over 14.1 million in December 2023, according to data by research firm Roy Morgan, with 9.2 million now employed full-time and over 4.9 million employed part-time.
Despite high employment – which is up by 607,000 compared to a year ago – more than 3 million Australians were unemployed or under-employed in December, making up 19.4% of the workforce.
Australian employment increased by 165,000 due to a rise in full-time employment - up 234,000 to a new record high of 9,242,000. However, part-time employment was down 69,000 to 4,933,000.
Meanwhile, an estimated 1,364,000 Australians were unemployed, down 0.9% to 8.8% according to Roy Morgan, which is more than double the estimate of 3.9% by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for November. However, it is comparable with the combined ABS unemployment and under-employment figure of 10.4%.
There were fewer people looking for full-time jobs (536,000, down 90,000) and part-time jobs (828,000, down 51,000) compared to a month ago. In addition, there were a further 1,651,000 Australians (up 119,000) now under-employed.
Including underemployed, Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said the Australian workforce hit over 15.5 million, also a record high.
“As we have stated all year, a big reason for these record highs, and continuing high unemployment and under-employment, is the large growth in the size of the Australian population over the last year,” Levine said. “The increases are driven by a record high annual population increase of 831,000 during 2023.
“This level of increase is almost three times larger than the long-term average over the last 25 years during which the Australian population increased on an annual basis by an average of 280,000.
Levine said the rapidly growing population has led to increases in employment metrics across the board.
“Unfortunately, there has also been a significant increase in labour under-utilisation over the last year as the economy has been unable to find new jobs for all those joining the workforce,” she said. “Although unemployment has reduced by 20,000, under-employment has surged by 290,000. Overall labour under-utilisation is therefore up by 270,000 from a year ago to 3,015,000 – near post-pandemic highs.”
Levine said the high net immigration has kept Australia out of a recession over the last two years with the latest ABS quarterly GDP growth for September 2023 showing the economy growing at only 0.2% for the quarter. This is less than the rate of population growth.
“However, the swelling workforce is increasingly unable to provide the right type of jobs for all those who need them with over 3 million Australians looking for work or looking for more work,” Levine said. “Tackling this continuing high level of unemployment and under-employment must be the number one priority for the Federal Government over the next year heading into the next election due in early 2025.”
Compared to early March 2020, before the nation-wide lockdown, there were over 850,000 more Australians either unemployed or under-employed in December 2023 even though overall employment (14,175,000) is over 1.3 million higher than it was pre-COVID-19 (12,872,000).
The December Roy Morgan Unemployment estimates were obtained by surveying an Australia-wide cross section of people aged 14+. A person is classified as unemployed if they are looking for work, no matter when. Roy Morgan’s unemployment rate is presented as a percentage of the workforce (employed & unemployed).
The latest monthly figures from the ABS indicate that the number of people working fewer hours in November 2023 due to illness, injury or sick leave was 526,000. This is around 134,000 higher than the pre-pandemic average of the six years to November 2019 (391,800) – a difference of 134,200.
If this higher than pre-pandemic average of workers (134,200) is added to the combined ABS unemployment and under-employment figure of 1,543,400, Roy Morgan claims the total of 1,677,200 people could be considered unemployed or under-employed, equivalent to 11.3% of the workforce.