Australian employment: Spatial awareness

Research evidence excerpt

Australian employment: Spatial awareness

Ben K Jarman Economic Research J P M O R G A N(61-2) 9003-7982 27 July 2026

ben.k.jarman@jpmorgan.com

Australia: HLFS monthly employment

Monthly employment change, 000s

Actual

Contribution from part rate ch

-50

-100

-150

2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027

Source: ABS, J.P. Morgan

It is of course good news that participation could drag forth employment gains in June.

Though, as the correlations above show, this is relatively normal, hence the fallacy of treating

participation as an independent, lucky offset to given employment gains. For this reason, we

always emphasize the information content is highest in the unemployment rate, which has

deteriorated.

Moreover, participation tailwinds were more technical than usual over May and June. Rather

than the usual 1/8 of HLFS participants being replaced every month, for the May through July

editions, sample replacement is being dialed up to 1/4, as the ABS transitions to a new

collection framework. This is important because the variation we observe in the data over

time, described above, is actually composed of two effects: genuine time series variation for

a fixed group (driven by the economy) and spatial variation reflecting natural differences

between random samples of the population. The latter is still a genuine representation of

where the unemployment rate level is, but shouldn’t be confused for a change in the economy

over time.

Australia: Labour force flows incoming to sample

ppl/month, 000s ppll/month, 000s

3800 200

3400 Incoming to emp Incoming to unemp

3000 150

100 1800

1000 50

01 06 11 16 21 26

Doubling the rate of sample replacement doubles the proportion of data variation coming

from the spatial/cross-sectional differences between sample groups, as opposed to changes

over time.