The latest available ABS Labour Force Survey figures show that the level of employment increased by 123,600 (or 0.9%) over the 3 months to March 2022.

The national unemployment rate also continued to decline, from 4.2% in December 2021, to 4.0% in March 2022, the equal lowest rate recorded since 1974 – noting that the unemployment rate fell to 4.0% twice during 2008. The decline in the unemployment rate occurred in conjunction with a 0.3 percentage point increase in the participation rate, to 66.4% in March 2022, an equal record high.

In addition, the employment-to-population (aged 15 and above) ratio rose to an equal record high of 63.8% in March 2022 (see Figure 1, below).

Figure 1: Employment to population (aged 15 years and above) ratio, March 2002 to March 2022

While employment has grown steadily in recent months, trends in hours worked have been more volatile. Nationally, the number of monthly hours worked fell by 19.1 million hours (or 1.0%) over the 3 months to March 2022 but remains 38.2 million hours (or 2.2%) above the level recorded in March 2020. Over this period, three distinct impacts were observed. Hours worked:

• fell sharply in January 2022, due largely, to a significant increase in the number of people who worked reduced hours due to ‘own illness, injury or sick leave’, as a result of the high number of COVID cases associated with the Omicron variant
• recovered strongly in February (almost fully negating the January fall), albeit there was still a higher that usual number of people working reduced or zero hours due to ‘own illness, injury or sick leave'
• fell again in March 2022, driven, in part, by a significant increase in number of people working zero or reduced hours over the month (of 454,900 or 924.6%) due to ‘bad weather or plant breakdown’ arising from the flooding in New South Wales and Queensland.

Figure 3: Annual change in hours worked by gender (%), March 2012 to March 2022