There are significantly fewer people in Australia looking for work as unemployment dropped by 230,000 to just over 1.6 million in March 2025.
This is according to new data from Roy Morgan, which shows that its ‘real’ unemployment sits at 10.2 per cent of the workforce, down from 11.5 per cent in February.
There were two drivers of the decrease in unemployment including the increases in full-time employment, up 29,000 to 9,385,000 and part-time employment, up 34,000 to 4,801,000.
In addition, some people previously classified left the workforce, which dropped 167,000 to 15,790,000.
The decrease in unemployment was also driven by drops in people looking for part-time work, down 101,000 to 957,000, and fewer people looking for full-time work, down 129,000 to 647,000.
The March Roy Morgan Unemployment estimates were obtained by surveying an Australia-wide cross section of people aged 14 and above.
A person is classified as unemployed if they are looking for work, no matter when. The ‘real’ unemployment rate is presented as a percentage of the workforce (employed & unemployed).
In addition to the unemployed, a further 1.43 million Australians (or 9.1 per cent of the workforce) were under-employed – in other words, working part-time but looking for more work – down 199,000 from February.
In total, 3.03 million Australians (19.3 per cent of the workforce) were either unemployed or under-employed in March.
The workforce in March was at a near record 15,790,000 (up 1,377,000 from May 2022) – comprised of 14,186,000 employed Australians (up 942,000 from two years ago).
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said since the last Federal Election in May 2022, the population has increased by over 1.7 million, while the workforce has increased by over 1.3 million, and employment itself has grown by well over 900,000.
“These figures are around twice as high as the long-term averages over the 20 years from 2000 to early 2020 (pre COVID-19),” Levine said. “Over this period population growth averaged around 280,000 per year (840,000 over three years) and the workforce grew by an average of around 230,000 per year (690,000 over three years).
“Despite the record employment growth over the last three years, there are still a significant number of people who have joined the workforce without finding employment – a total of 435,000 since the last Federal Election. This influx of people into the workforce has meant unemployment is up significantly over the last three years from 8.1 per cent of the workforce to 10.2 per cent (up 2.1 per cent).”
Levine added that rapidly increasing Australian population and workforce has led to a persistently high level of labour under-utilisation.
Since July 2022, she said, total unemployed and under-employed has been permanently above 2.5 million, and since April 2023 total labour under-utilisation has been stuck above 2.6 million and averaged nearly 3 million over the last two years.
“These figures show that as we head towards a Federal Election the economy continues to deal with millions of Australians looking for work (unemployed) or looking for more work (under-employed),” Levine said.
“Despite the sustained rise in levels of labour under-utilisation since the last Federal Election in May 2022, the latest Roy Morgan Poll shows the Albanese Government is on track to be re-elected, and likely with an increased majority in Parliament (ALP 54.5 per cent cf. L-NP 45.5 per cent).”