Long-Term Unemployment: methodology

What this metric measures

People unemployed for 52 weeks or more, in thousands of persons, seasonally adjusted (ABS Labour Force Table 025).

Why it matters: Long-term unemployment is far harder to recover from than a short spell, and it hides inside the headline unemployment rate.

Source & provenance

Publisher

ABS Labour Force Survey Cat. 6202.0, Table 025 (long-term unemployed, persons, seasonally adjusted)

Update frequency

monthly

Licence

CC BY 4.0

How the score is computed

The score is a 0–100 normalisation of the latest observation, compared to a baseline window. The traffic-light rating (RAG) reflects both the absolute level and the recent trend.

Direction

Lower is better

Trend window

24 months

Baseline

Last 10 years

{
  "red_min_pct_of_baseline": 110,
  "amber_max_pct_of_baseline": 110,
  "green_max_pct_of_baseline": 95
}