From the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Labour Force December 2016 report

Employment Change: +13.5 K

  • expected +10.0K, prior +37.1K, revised from +39.1K

Unemployment Rate: 5.8%

  • expected 5.7%, prior 5.7%

Full Time Employment Change: +9.3 K

  • prior was +38.3K, revised from +39.3K

Part Time Employment Change: +4.2 K

  • prior was -1.3K, revised from -0.2K

Participation Rate: 64.7 %

  • expected is 64.6%, prior was 64.6%

Those results are the seasonally adjusted, which are the focus.

Here are the 'trend' numbers:

  • Total trend employment increased by 8,200 (represents an increase of 0.1 per cent, remaining below the monthly average growth rate over the past 20 years of 0.15 per cent.)
  • Monthly trend full-time employment increased by 7,000 (The third consecutive month of increasing full-time employment)
  • Part-time +1,100
  • Trend unemployment rate was 5.7 per cent (for the ninth consecutive month)
  • Trend participation rate was unchanged at 64.6 per cent
  • The trend monthly hours worked increased by 2.3 million hours (0.1 per cent), with increases in total hours worked by both full-time workers and part-time workers
  • Over the past 12 months, trend employment increased by 85,600 (or 0.7 per cent), which is less than half the size of the average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years (1.8 per cent)
  • Over the same 12 month period the trend employment to population ratio, which is a measure of how employed the population over 15 years is, decreased by 0.4 percentage points to 60.9 per cent

(Says the ABS: Trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market)

Year-on-year employment growth was 0.7 per cent, which was less than half the average growth, of 1.8 per cent, from the past 20 year

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On the headlines this is an Ok report, higher employment (a beat).

Yes, a higher unemployment but the higher participation will be cited to offset that

On the downside, full-time well lower than the previous month

...

So on the headlines its an OK report ... but it doesn't take much digging to see this is a poor report really ...

I'm gonna cite someone who has done some digging already, follow this guy on twitter: @CallamPickering:

  • Total hours worked rose by 0.1 per cent in Dec on a trend basis, to be 0.4 per cent higher over the year. Pretty weak result
  • Australian employment rose by 85.6k during 2016, which was the worst calendar year result since 2013
  • participation rate remains near decade low

And another thing ... Since December 2015 (so, in the past year):

  • Full-time employment has fallen by 35,300 persons
  • Part-time employment has increased by 120,900 persons