31 Jan Unemployment Down Across Most Regions

Small Area Labour Market September quarter data released

The latest September 2021 data reveals unemployment rates in Local Government Areas (LGAs) across Australia ranged from 56.5% in Kowanyama, Queensland to 0.5% in Ashburton, Western Australia.

At a smaller area level, the latest estimates show that 63.6% of SA2s recorded a decrease in their unemployment rate over the year to the September 2021 quarter.  At the same time, 53.4% of SA2s had an unemployment rate of less than 5% while the unemployment rate of 9.2% of SA2s was 10% or higher.

The National Skills Commission (NSC) has released the latest September 2021 data for both SA2s and LGAs across Australia.

The NSC notes that:

‘The September quarter 2021 estimates capture the majority of the recent lockdowns (COVID related) that have occurred in response to Delta outbreaks in large parts of the country.  That said, it is worth bearing in mind that the smoothed series, which is created by averaging four quarters of unsmoothed data, lags actual changes in labour market conditions.  It also means that the smoothed estimates for a given quarter are an average of four quarters in which considerably different labour market conditions may have prevailed…

It is also worth noting that the labour market’s adjustment to COVID-19 has not been fully reflected in the level of unemployment and the unemployment rate.  At various times since March 2020, lockdowns implemented to control the spread of COVID-19 have tended to result in a large number of people leaving the labour force.  As these people were no longer participating in the labour force, they were not counted as unemployed by the ABS, leading to a much smaller increase in the unemployment rate than would have otherwise been expected, given the significant fall in employment that has occurred during the lockdowns.’

At the state and territory level, ABS estimates show that the September 2021 unemployment rate was highest in South Australia (5.1%) followed by Queensland (4.8%) with the lowest in Western Australia and the ACT (4.1%).

For Australia, the unemployment rate for the September 2021 quarter was 4.6% which is 0.6 pts lower than March 2020.

Our clients’ public regional profiles have now been updated with these latest unemployment estimates and they can be viewed by searching our Region Explorer application.

Unemployment rates for SA2s and LGAs across Australia can be viewed in the REMPLAN Unemployment Explorer which also allows the user to benchmark each area against other areas in the relevant State/Territory or nationally.

In addition to the unemployment rate estimates, JobSeeker data provides further insights in relation to people who are eligible for government support, even though they may be undertaking some work.  The Department of Social Services releases figures regularly on the number of recipients of JobSeeker benefits and REMPLAN has developed its JobSeeker Explorer, providing this data for SA2s and LGAs across the country.  For further information regarding JobSeeker, see our blog.

Please contact the team at REMPLAN if you have any questions or would like to discuss how we can assist you with economic and demographic analysis matters more broadly.