Key points from the Australian Bureau of Statistic's labour market numbers for Queensland in January 2019 include:
- Queensland's unemployment rate remains unchanged at 6.1% in trend terms and is down from 6.1% to 6.0% seasonally adjusted.
- Nationally the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 5.1% (trend) and 5.0% (seasonally adjusted).
- For Queensland's trend series there was an increase in total employed persons and a reduction in unemployed persons but not enough to shift the unemployment rate. In seasonally adjusted terms there was a fall in total employed persons but also a fall in unemployed persons that led to the lower unemployment rate.
- Queensland's underemployment rate (measures those persons wanting additional hours of work) has improved in the past six months and currently stands at 8.8%.
- Queensland's employment growth is slowly starting to improve. In trend terms there where 3,500 jobs created in January 2019 and over the past 12 months 27,700 jobs have been created.
- Queensland's employment growth in the last six months has been largely driven by full-time positions.
- Total hours worked in Queensland whilst flat across much of 2018 has expanded recently indicating more demand in the economy for labour.
- As an aside NSW would now be regarded as being close to what is termed 'full-employment' with an unemployment rate at 3.9%.
