Interpac Business and Migration Solutions Melbourne Australia

February 23, 2010

The faltering economy did not just increase the number unemployed - the number employed but working fewer hours than they preferred also rose sharply.

The number officially unemployed - out of work, but looking for a job and ready to start - peaked at 662,200 in July last year.

At 654,100, it was only marginally lower by September, the one month of the year when the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) conducted its once-a-year survey of underemployment, which it released today.

A year before the unemployed had numbered 487,500, and a year before that, in September 2007, there had been only 467,800 unemployed.

The increase over those two years was 186,300 or just shy of 40 per cent.

Underemployed workers are those who are employed, but who would prefer to be clocking up - and are available for - more hours of work.

In September 2007, there were 518,400 classed as underemployed. A year later there were 655,000.

That rise was probably an artefact of changes to the bureau’s survey methodology, but there are no such doubts over the rise over the following year, when underemployment jumped to 811,600 in September 2009.

The latest labour force figures show unemployment has fallen sharply in the past few months, with 612,000 officially unemployed and the unemployment rate at 5.3 per cent.

Presumably, the number of underemployed has fallen in parallel.

We will not know for sure until this time next year, when the next annual estimate of underemployment is published.

Even so, there is no reason to expect the pattern of recent years to change - for every four people fitting the standard definition of unemployed there are five or more ready to take on more hours if only there were available.

(Source from The Sydney Morning Herald.com.au)