Participation Rate — methodology
Category: Economy & Jobs · Unit: % of people aged 15+ · Published monthly
What this metric measures
The share of people aged 15 and over who are either working or actively looking for work.
Why it matters: Participation gives essential context to unemployment: a falling jobless rate alongside falling participation can mean people are giving up rather than finding work.
Source & provenance
- Publisher
- ABS Labour Force (Cat. 6202.0)
- 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
- Context-dependent
- Trend window
- 24 months
- Baseline
- Last 10 years
Thresholds:
{
"neutral": true
}See related corrections at /corrections, or the live data and chart at https://www.australiametrics.org/metric/participation-rate.