Just saw the news that unemployment remains steady at 4.2% in August.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-18/unemployment-steady-a…
With so many jobs axed from Banking and Mining, do you think they are cooking the stats to look good.
Is The Government Cooking The Unemployment Stats?
Danger on 18/09/2025 - 13:12
Last edited 18/09/2025 - 14:16 by 1 other user
Last edited 18/09/2025 - 14:16 by 1 other user
Comments
- 1
- 2
news.com.au comment section should work.
Any Murdoch related rag will do..
I think you’re giving news.com.au far too much credit
There's no cooking, it's not perfect but its well understood.
- It only counts people looking for work in the last four weeks.
- Employment includes anyone working one hour per week, masking underemployment.
- Gig economy and casual workers counted as employed despite unstable income.
You need to combine it with productivity measurements to get a better picture if the economy is stalling.
As for the bankers and miners. They likely got a big payout so they wont be looking for work for a while.
With so many jobs axed from Banking and Mining,
Don't be a banker and mine your own business.
The job cuts in banking and mining are tiny compared to the labour market, and these companies are often hiring in different areas so the net losses are usually less.
They will also not turn up in the unemployment stats for a number of months due to things like notice periods.
That said, previous governments have put in changes that make the unemployment rate look better than it is.
“ That said, previous governments have put in changes that make the unemployment rate look better than it is.”
Like what?
like if you work 1 hour per week you are counted as EMPLOYED, the govt does not consider UNDEREMPLOYMENT as a thing
You understand that's the global standard for the definition of 'employed' right?
And yet the ABS reports the underemployment rate. Weird.
And human psychology of anxiety and fear of the unknown plays a role too. Positives like last week’s news of ATO hiring hundreds of workers receives far less attention. But negative news on cuts spread quickly.
Also while orgs usually hire in increments over time, cuts are almost always sudden and big.
Combined with our short attention spans this feels like everyone is about to lose their jobs.
We are not China or trying to (Trump US).
The summary of the article is a bit misleading / confusing. Unemployment rate is unchanged, but participation rate has decreased. That's also a bad thing, because a drop in participation rate means that there are less people in the working-age population who are either working or looking for work. People who have thrown in the towel and have stopped looking for work, are not considered unemployed in the %.
The unemployment rate remained at 4.2%, but this was partly because the participation rate dropped from 67% to 66.8%—meaning fewer people were active in the labor market. If you read RBA you can see how the unemployment rate is calculated, and why the unemployment rate itself may not be meaningful if you don't also take into account participation rate.
The unemployment rate would have jumped due to the fall in employed people, but the labour force shrank by more than 22,000 people last month, as some people stopped looking for work.
IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said the simultaneous decline in employment and participation shows Australia's jobs market is weakening faster than expected.
See Tony Sycamore's Tweet
However all those figures are seasonally adjusted - the trend numbers is no change to the participation rate (66.9%) and an increase in the number of people employed (by 18,100)
Now we can argue over which set of figures is 'most accurate' but to argue that one set shows a complete disaster (per that tweet) when the other set shows essentially no change is cherry picking a little bit
The article states:
"Australia's unemployment rate has remained steady at 4.2 per cent in August, due to a big drop in the proportion of people looking for work."
"The unemployment rate would have jumped due to the fall in employed people, but the labour force shrank by more than 22,000 people last month, as some people stopped looking for work."
Also:
"The participation rate, which measures the proportion of the working-age population either employed or actively seeking work, often falls when individuals stop looking for jobs due to perceived lack of opportunities, particularly during economic slowdowns," he noted.
"This trend may reflect growing pessimism among job seekers, reinforced by recent high-profile lay-offs in sectors like banking, mining, and education."
And:
"The stagnation in job creation is a worrying trend given that Australia's population grew by 1.6 per cent over the year to March."
…
Employment opportunities decreasing, use of AI increasing, yet property prices also increasing.
This is a worrying trend.
If anything, the government should be trying to put the brakes on the housing market, not spurring it on. Otherwise, millions of people may be up their eyeballs in debt right when the AI-induced employment armageddon arrives.
Couldn't agree more. Can't imaging how it'd be like for my kids.
And yet, Labor leaders have gone on the record stating they "don't want housing prices to drop at all", and all their house policies seem designed to help increase property prices further (by stimulating demand, and by pumping taxpayer money into the property market).
Should we accept a government that taxes our hard-earned money, pays themselves with that money, and also pumps that money into the property market, thereby deliberately making it harder for us to buy a decent home and pay it off? (having a huge mortgage is not "owning a home", in my opinion, since the bank owns most of it)
Daily reminder that this is by design: You will own nothing.
@tenpercent: Government wants most of us renting from the banks so we have to keep working until we die.
AI will take the good jobs. We'll be left with the fun jobs of picking fruit, cleaning toilets, delivering Amazon orders when we're 90.
We'll be left with the fun jobs
Even that's optimistic with the advancements in robotics.
Total demand for those tasks will also reduce as the world population declines as well… speaking of…
when we're 90
I suspect they will want you to opt out long before then. VAD (Voluntary Assisted Dying) is now legal across Australia, except in NT. Currently the only allowable reason for it is if you are dying of a terminal illness. But that's also how it started out in Canada too (although they called their program MAiD so it's totally not the same thing or instigated by the same people; I think Germany had the coolest sounding name though, they called their program Aktion T4). Within just 6 years in Canada it went from eligibility only for people whose natural death was 'reasonably foreseeable' (essentially the same as what Australia has now) to allowing individuals with a 'grievous and irremediable' medical condition whose death is not reasonably foreseeable to access it; basically if you're disabled (I suppose the Canadians don't need NDIS though). Mental illness is the only excluded condition but the law was written with a sunset clause for that exclusion which comes up in 2 years; although the usual suspects are funding court cases to challenge the validity of that exclusion.
In the not too distant future, maybe:
Your toilet cleaning robot has reported that you are depressed and sad. Have you considered VAD? Don't be a burden on your family and society. Your existence is boiling the planet. And you're living on stolen land. Don't be sad, call 1300 VAD!
Sounds like we need to import more Indians
With so many jobs axed from Banking and Mining
Also look at the other side. Where are jobs being created?
It is offset by NDIS jobs, Public Sector etc…
Friend of my works in the NDIS but going to loose his job in Nov due to below.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-28/centacare-slash-disab…
1 hour per week is classified as "employed".
Ha ha
It is not a joke. That is how they measure it.
That's because that's the economic definition of "employed"
Has that always been the definition? If the definition was changed at some point to this, has the historical data been adjusted so we can compare like for like across time?
its always been the definition and its the internationally accepted definition that applies in almost all countries. Whether you agree with it or not, it allows for a constant assessment across different time frames
there is also an 'underemployed' statistic (which remained at 5.8% for those interested)
As usual many people (not you) complain because a statistic that is specifically measuring one thing is not measuring something different. Its the same complaint we get with CPI - it doesnt measure (say) house prices or isnt relevant to retirees. Well there are the SLCIs to measure that.
Its pretty much like complaining that Steve Smith's batting average doesnt tell you anything about his bowling.
In 2006 Jason Gillespie got dropped from the team after a double century! The government must have cooked the figures, there is no other explanation.
I studied economics in 2007 it was the definition then im assuming it always has been the case
It why under employment is also reported
This is the way it has been my entire life and the way it is measured in every advanced economy.
If the classification was 40 hours. I'd be part of the unemployed. What number is "accurate"?The stats are best used to tell if things are getting better or worse. This set of stats are kind of bland, no meaningful changes.
But twitter posters and newspaper sellers need a headline!I'm just posting for information, there are lots of people who don't understand that 1hr is the definition of employed.
It doesn't matter which number is "accurate" - only that the numbers are consistent between countries and over time. This is because policy makers are (meant to, anyways) making policy based on cause and effect - the actual unemployment rate doesn't matter.
What matters is that an unemployment rate of x% results in y, z things happening in the economy (taxes, investment, inflation, etc). So whether the u/e rate is 4% or 40% it doesn't matter, as long as it helps policy makers decide how to shape policy to achieve desired outcomes.
Which is less than 0.1% of the labour force so doesn’t make any consequential difference to the unemployment rate.
That doesn't make any sense.
If you've given up looking for work but are still unemployed you're not counted. If you work a few hours per month at way below what you should be earning you're not counted either.
The headline figure is probably accurate but it doesn't tell the real state of the economy.
Likewise we didn't have a post COVID recession as GDP was slowly growing, but on the more important per capita basis we had a recession for almost 18 months. The overall GDP figure was accurate, but again it doesn't show what people are actually experiencing.
All those things are measured though.
Despite our aging population employment to population ratio was 65.7% at the end of 2019 and is now 66.8%. It was 61.4% at the end of 2015.
Underutilisation rate is 10%, whereas it was 13.3% in Dec 2019. They're counted, just in different ways.
But even then, the underlying picture doesn't tell everything either. We're all working but as you said there was a large per-capita decrease in GDP. Productivity has slumped. It's like we're spinning our wheels working here, when it really just relies on what the mining industry is doing at any given moment.
Yes, labour force participation and related stats are also collected and reported, but the headline figure (and what the OP was referencing) just states one neat low number that people are skeptical of.
it doesnt state 'one neat low number'. It states a number that has a specific meaning. If you want a number that measures something different, then go and get that number and look at that number.
I'm just here for the bargains
With so many jobs axed from Banking and Mining and Building and Most other industries, do you think they are cooking the stats to look good.
yes
It's a lagging indicator
With so many jobs axed from Banking and Mining
They are planning to. Just not yet axed so not in August number…
Yeah it’s rigged. I’ve personally had a few of my colleagues fired for making grotesque jokes and comments about Kirk creamy soda
Yes, I lost 6 colleagues this yr for 'restructuring'.
Company merger - 200+ gone across AU so far.
@Dollar General -
So your colleagues got the bullet also.Yep but they were a pain in the neck so good riddance
Laughter is the best medicine when you're working in an aluminium can recycling plant because those jobs are soda pressing.
As others have commented, a lot of the carnage is being hidden by the participation rate (people given up looking for work).
I also suspect there is a lot of carnage being hidden by the definition of employment being at least 1 hour of work per week. So what are the underemployment figures like?
Looking at total number of employed hours worked vs total adult population would give a better view IMO.
Underemployment is at its lowest rate in decades.
Is The Government Cooking The Unemployment Stats?
Not unemployed if you import people and put them on benefits that don't need to look for work.
Tax payers are funding our own replacement.
I think they're mostly useful idiots. But, what's in it for them? They're simply importing future voters. Name a better way to set your Party up with multi-generational Deva worship and eternal gratitude for both Albosleazy and the ALP than to extend the hands of Vishnu to the third world and then give them the gift of Nirvana in this lifetime.
But, what's in it for them?
Them as the imported people? Free money….
Them as in the idiot gov/leaders? Free Money aka kick backs.
They're simply importing future voters. Name a better way to set your Party
Here is a funny thought. How about they do what the people of Australia want instead, if they did that, then the Party would be set.
The problem is, they don't do what most voters want, so instead of decided to replace Australians with new voters.
Who don't work or work low skilled job, so that'll end well in 50 years when that is all that is left.
Call be racist for this, but just stating a face, if I look at my kids school it really is a case of spot the white kid these days. White Australia has been replaced. Most are just too dumb to notice it.
Free money….
LOL!!
VERY LITTLE money. I doubt has any value at all.
VERY LITTLE money. I doubt has any value at all.
Its more than very little money, they get paid very well, plus free housing and all the extra support services that everyone else doesn't get.
Gov is spending crazy dollars to import voters…. Instead they could just spend that money on you know, doing what Australians want instead. But no that is too hard.
The funny thing is if 'white' Australia is being replaced then its actually going back to the norm. How many white people were here before 1788?
The White Australia policy ended in 1973.
How many white people were here before 1788?
The people who had been here before 1788 havn't been replaced. They are still around today.
The same can't be said moving forward for them or white Australia.
How many white people were here before 1788
Does anyone know for sure? ? ?
And a digression, what kind of country was Australia then? Offering what?
Hopefully your kid doesn't take after you and doesn't mind going to school with people with different skin colour to them. 🙄
Hopefully your kid doesn't take after you and doesn't mind going to school with people with different skin colour to them. 🙄
I don't have an issue with people skin colour, I do have an issue with being replaced. There is a difference.
Do tell me how importing millions of people into Australia over the last decade has HELPED those that lived here before hand?
Are goods cheaper? Is housing cheaper? Are the skill shortages gone? Is health care better?
How about roads / traffic? or the Education system? Crime?
The answer to all these questions is no, they all had been better 20 years ago before we flooded the country with people regardless of skin colour.
So yes, nothing to do with skin colour, I would be saying the same if we flooded the country with white people from another country. But my comments are valid, white Australia is being replaced, like it not.
Its not like the UN has a paper on how do to this… oh wait, they do
https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve…
I do hope you're having more white babies then.
and bring them into the hell hole that Australia is on the path to become? Yeah nah, if things had been different't, but they are not.
The world is once sad place and set to become even worse.
So you're waving your white flag of defeat while complaining about being defeated?
Sure if you want to put it that way.
Lets be honest, there is nothing that I can do about this, its above my pay grade.
So you can call it complaining, I'm just pointing out what is happening. Most people are dense and have no idea what they are walking into. Bit like the protect the U16 children from the internet. LOL Nothing about the kids, all about linking everyone on the internet to a ID.
I mean if it really was about protecting the kids, how come not a single porn site is on the banned list? Which is worse for a 12yo? Watching YouTube or watching a hard core porn on p0rnhub?
going to school with people with different skin colour
Colorful Smurfs don't go to school, we are all safe …
"Them" as in the stooges we call politicians.
"Them" as in the stooges we call politicians.
Yep they are getting kick backs indeed. Our lovely PM who has never worked a day in his life outside of a gov job, has some how ended up with millions of dollars in super, millions of dollars of property and on track for a $500k/year pension.
Pretty good for a guy who grew up in public housing and claiming to be dirt poor.
Call be racist for this
As requested, you be racist.
Is this that Great Replacement Theory conspiracy that Jacinta Price was going on about, ALP importing Indians "because" ALP are cherry picking their next groups of generational voters?
Seemed like a bunch of nonsense to me at the time (basically Jacinta again repeating MAGA stuff) but if you're repeating the talking points, maybe a lot of thought has gone into the ideas after all?
Is this that Great Replacement Theory conspiracy
Considering the UN has a roadmap for Replacement Migration, I'm not sure if it is really can be called a conspiracy theory.
Take note of the date this was published… Then start to put the prices together of when the country was flooded with overseas people. You'll see they are linked. The UN isn't your friend.
https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve…
@JimmyF: Alleging that a government is deliberately stacking the future voting deck in their favour by deliberately importing migrants that will vote for them is a conspiracy however.
And you can look up the phrase "Great Replacement Theory" to confirm its well and truly a conspiracy theory in its own regard and not something derived from a UN policy
Alleging that a government is deliberately stacking the future voting deck in their favour by deliberately importing migrants that will vote for them is a conspiracy however
Is it a conspiracy theory if it is happening or true? Or only if you don't believe in it?
and not something derived from a UN policy
So we'll just ignore the UN policy for people replacement then and pretend they never planned this all along.
Is it a conspiracy theory if it is happening or true?
No, if the theory matches reality (which includes proving the intent of the parties involved), that would be different. But the intent is the biggest part of the theory. E.g.
- There's a conspiracy theory that the govt is using fluoride in the drinking water to mind control the population and create cancer
- We have documents confirming the govt actually is adding fluoride to the drinking water
Note the existence of point 2 being verified doesn't actually prove there's a conspiracy. It's the same thing with Great Replacement Theory.
We are importing migrants. Are we cherry picking our migrants for party specific outcomes? Jacinta says yes but couldn't explain how. It's nonsense.
So we'll just ignore the UN policy for people replacement then and pretend they never planned this all along
There were planning documents for adding fluoride to the water, as well. Planning for some migration for some reasons is not the same as ALP choosing to buy votes via Indian migrants or them getting the idea from a UN document.
There's a conspiracy theory that the govt is using fluoride in the drinking water to mind control the population and create cancer
The whole "fluoride in the water is being used for mind control is a conspiracy theory" is itself a conspiracy theory. It's a misrepresentation at best. The issue is that there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between fluoride intake and IQ, among many other negative effects, and there's no provable link between water fluoridation and dental health.
You've probably drunk too much tap water in your lifetime to understand. So I'll state it more simply: fluoridated water makes you dumb and harms your health, and besides there's no good reason for mass medicating the population through the water supply with fluoride.
The whole "fluoride in the water is being used for mind control is a conspiracy theory" is itself a conspiracy theory. It's a misrepresentation at best.
Well, the Wikipedia article on water fluoridation quotes a source from the 50s describing water fluoridation as "a Communist plot to deplete the brainpower and sap the strength of a generation of American children", so you're wrong but thanks for trying to clarify without making some sort of cheap childish shot at the (correct) person who had contradicted you.
You've probably drunk too much tap water in your lifetime to understand
Oh, there it is.
@Crow K: "deplete the brainpower" =/= "mind control"
Has the tap water messed with your reading comprehension skills that much, or are you just trying save face?
There were planning documents for adding fluoride to the water, as well. Planning for some migration for some reasons is not the same as ALP choosing to buy votes via Indian migrants or them getting the idea from a UN document.
Trying to link some conspiracy fluoride in water theory and mass immigration is pretty out there.
So lets look at it then.
Australia does have mass immigration, that's a fact. Its ramped up in the last decade.
Australias demographic is changing, that's a fact.
Mass immigration hasn't solved any of the problems they claimed it would, that's also a fact.
So what are we flooding the country and replacing everyone for again?
Fun fact that no one likes to talk about, people don't have kids because a house costs a life time of income leaving no money for kids.
So instead of flooding the country and driving up house prices, how about addressing the issue that is stopping people having kids. Australia has always had immigration and a slow and steady growth of people. Flooding any coutntry with people never ends well.
Australia is a sign of this, crazy house prices, stupid traffic, everything 'full', queues for lots of staff, long waits for medical. Its just a sad place to live.
Did you even actually read the document?
Yes I have, have you?
it isn't a roadmap for anything
As you have read it, tell me what you think the document is about if it isn't about replacement migration?
Lmao. The current Labor government has been in power for just over one term and Labor has been in power just 10 of the last 30 years. The majority of immigration for the last three decades has happened under Coalition governments and the vast majority under Coalition policy (because Labor is generally terrified to change immigration because everyone thinks of them as the party of open borders). But keep reaching my friend.
Looking at the last 30 years of immigration:
- Average net migration for years when LNP was in government 129k per annum.
- Average net migration for years when ALP was in government 254k per annum — almost twice the rate as under LNP.
- Top two years for peak net migration have both occurred during the Albosleazy ALP government; 2023 547k; 2024 446k.
@tenpercent: Cite your figures, but most importantly share your policy changes that generated that difference. Migration isn't a tap that the government turns off and on. It's according to policy. The last two years are a rebound from COVID. The trend line is identical to the past government when you account for that.
@tenpercent: Graph 1.1 in the second link is quite telling. There's a huge step change in 'normal' immigration levels from 2007 (thanks Kevin!).
And now there's been another huge step change in 'normal' immigration from 2022 (thanks Albo!).
@tenpercent: Someone needs to learn about reading numbers through the noise. I know we all want to forget COVID happened, but it did.
@wtfisgoingon: Yes, I agree. In this case, the noise is the BS excuse that "it's just catching up from the covid dip".
@tenpercent: It's just such a shame that the numbers you linked support that story exactly isn't it?
@tenpercent: Cool cool. Thought it might be that one.
It's the same website that shows that if you average net migration between the start of COVID-19 (Mar-20) and today (Jun-24) you arrive at a figure of 247,000, which is identical to the final figure reported before the pandemic started (Dec-19).
It's funny how you can just read what you want into stats isn't it?
It also shows that the proportional growth in Indian migration happened at the end of the last Coalition government. But it's definitely a grand Labor conspiracy.
Probably, but couldn't be as much as the CPI stats constantly get cooked.
Not just cooked but roasted as well.
It has been the same "statistical anomaly" for the last 30 years.
Nothing new here.
Well half of the working population in Australia are employed by various governments.
The only way forward is for the vast majority of people to become employed by state owned enterprises and the public service, which would mostly end unemployment and underemployment.
Then the people would contribute back to society with their income tax and GST, with the top bracket increased to 70%
Fake news. Roughly 17%.
Capitalism doesn't function without an unemployment rate 😂
If I have three jobs, does that make me 300% working or still 100% working
100% because you just displaced two other people if you worked 3.
wow so i add to the unemployment figure?
Better sack the head of the statistics bureau and replace with a clown
The employment number were indeed uuuuuge, fake news media
- 1
- 2
Might be better to ask a forum that will agree with your nonsense.