The latest Roy Morgan Research (RMR) survey for April is out, which registered a 0.6% seasonal reduction in unemployment to 10.4%, with the unemployment rate steady over the year (see next chart).
Here’s a summary of the release:
- This is the third consecutive year the Roy Morgan April unemployment rate has been 10.4%.
- There are 12,810,000 Australians in the workforce in April, down 134,000, from a month ago (although up 183,000 since April 2015) and 11,476,000 Australians are employed (up 158,000 since April 2015);
- Now 7,647,000 Australians are employed full-time – up 85,000 since April 2015 and 3,829,000 Australians (up 73,000) are part-time workers;
- Now 10.4% of the workforce, 1,334,000 people, are unemployed – up 25,000 since April 2015 with the unemployment rate unchanged from a year ago while 988,000 Australians are under-employed – working part-time and looking for more hours (7.7% of the workforce – down 149,000 (down 1.3%));
- Now a total of 2,322,000 Australians are unemployed or under-employed: a large 18.1% of the workforce – although this is down 124,000 (down 1.3%) since April 2015.
Gary Morgan has also dug the boot into the ABS’ jobs numberwang:
Last week’s decision by the RBA to cut Australian interest rates to a record low 1.75% shows the weakness the overall Australian economy is facing. The RBA’s decision to cut interest rates followed the announcement the week before that Australian CPI figures had turned to deflation of 0.2% in the March Quarter 2016, and an annual change of only +1.3%.
“In addition, the ongoing job losses throughout the Australian economy (Arrium, Queensland Nickel, Masters, Dick Smith, Electrolux etc.) also provide clear evidence that the ABS unemployment figures released monthly lack credibility. ABS estimated unemployment of only 5.7% in March indicating a booming Australian economy which is most certainly not reflected in other measures and clearly not believed by the RBA which is once again cutting interest rates.
“The major problem facing the Australian economy as Australia heads towards another Federal Election is that both sides of politics continue to base their economic modelling on the wrong unemployment data and because of this they will not advocate the correct policy reforms that need to be undertaken to ‘free-up’ the Australian labour market.
“Stimulating real growth in the Australian economy is the most effective way there is to create jobs for unemployed and under-employed Australians. In addition by continuing to use ‘wrong data’ there will be a large group of people (unemployed and under-employed) who will be disenfranchised and angry with whichever Government is elected in early July.”
As explained each month, RMR measures employment differently from the ABS:
According to the ABS definition, a person who has worked for one hour or more for payment or someone who has worked without pay in a family business, is considered employed regardless of whether they consider themselves employed or not.
The ABS definition also details that if a respondent is not actively looking for work (ie: applying for work, answering job advertisements, being registered with Centre-link or tendering for work), they are not considered to be unemployed.
The Roy Morgan survey, in contrast, defines any respondent who is not employed full or part-time and who is looking for paid employment as being unemployed…
Since Roy Morgan uses a broader definition of unemployment than the ABS, it necessarily reports a higher unemployment figure. In addition, Roy Morgan’s measure tends to be far more volatile, owing to the fact that it draws on a smaller sample than the ABS and is not seasonally adjusted.
The difference between the ABS unemployment rate (6.0% NSA as at March) and the unofficial RMR measure is now 4.4% (see next chart).
