- The Australian labour market has hinted at promising signs of recovery as employment figures crept back to pre-COVID levels over the month of February
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed today 89,000 people entered employment between January and February, taking Australia’s total employed population to just over 13 million people
- Of this figure, 89,100 took up full-time work, with women representing the vast majority of this increase
- A natural increase in population outweighed a pandemic-induced migration decline, to bring Australia’s total population to 25.7 million people
The Australian labour market has hinted at promising signs of recovery as employment figures crept back to pre-COVID levels over the month of February.
Signs of recovery
Today’s seasonally adjusted employment figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed 89,000 people became classed as employed between January and February 2021.
The growth over the month takes Australia’s employed population figure to just over 13 million people.
In seasonally adjusted terms, full-time employment rose by 89,100 to 8,895,000 people while part-time employment decreased marginally by 500 to 4,111,900 people.
Women accounted for the majority of the increase in full-time employment, which clocks in 1.8 per cent higher than in March last year.
Unemployment fell by 8 per cent over February, with youth unemployment following suit, declining by 1.1 percentage points.
Population growth
Despite a COVID-induced decrease in overseas migration, Australia’s population grew by 0.9 per cent during the year to 30 September 2020, taking our population to 25.7 million people.
ABS Demography Director Phil Browning explained natural increase accounted for 61.4 per cent of annual population growth, while net overseas migration accounted for the remaining 38.6 per cent.
“Over this 12-month period, there were 299,500 births and 164,100 deaths registered in Australia. Natural increase during this period was 135,400 people, a decrease of 3.8 per cent from the previous year,” he commented.
Net overseas migration was down 64.8 per cent overall compared to the previous year.