Australia’s capital, Canberra,The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released labour force statistics for January on Thursday, and they showed that the unemployment rate stayed at 4.2%, which is the same as December’s low of August 2008.
However, the overall number of hours worked by Australians decreased by 8.8%, or 159 million hours, from December to January as a consequence of rising COVID-19 infections. This is what the head of labour statistics at the ABS, Bjorn Jarvis, says led to a big drop in hours worked in January 2022. In the first two weeks of January, more people took annual and sick leave than usual, which caused a lot of COVID-19 cases linked to the Omicron variant to rise and a lot of labour market problems.
“While we noticed an increase in the number of people taking yearly leave, much more so than in the previous year, the 8.8 percent decline in hours worked in January 2022 represented far higher than average levels of sick leave,” Jarvis added.
“Across the country, as well as in New South Wales and Victoria, the number of people working fewer hours due to illness was around three times the pre-pandemic norm for January. It was twice as many people in other states and territories, “he noted.
Between December and January, the number of Australians employed full-time decreased by 17,000, but was offset by a 30,000 rise in part-time employment. The participation rate, which shows how many people between the ages of 18 and 64 are working, rose to 66.2 percent, which is close to the all-time high of 66.3 percent set in March 2021.
