Here is the ABS 2006 Employment comparison of the Labour Force Survey with the 2006 Census. The Labour Force Survey is generally taken as the "more accurate" figures.
In fact, my statement that the ABS regards an "employed" person as working more than 2 hours per week was PLAIN WRONG. My humble apologies. I just visited the ABS website and discovered it's actually [size=+1]
ONE hour per week or more over the age of 15!!!![/size]
How ridiculous!!
For your ultimate enlightenment, here be from the horses mouths -
3.9 The definition of employment used in the Labour Force Survey aligns closely with the concepts and international definitions outlined above. Employed persons are defined as all persons 15 years of age and over who, during the reference week:
(a) worked for one hour or more for pay, profit, commission or payment in kind, in a job or business or on a farm (comprising employees, employers and own account workers); or
(b) worked for one hour or more without pay in a family business or on a farm (i.e. contributing family workers); or
(c) were employees who had a job but were not at work and were:
+ away from work for less than four weeks up to the end of the reference week; or
+ away from work for more than four weeks up to the end of the reference week and received pay for some or all of the four week period to the end of the reference week; or
+ away from work as a standard work or shift arrangement; or
+ on strike or locked out; or
+ on workers' compensation and expected to be returning to their job; or
(d) were employers or own-account workers, who had a job, business or farm, but were not at work.
I love definition (b). Working for 1 hour or more FOR NO PAY! So the ABS also includes lots of "part time family employees earning nothing" in the stats? Imagine if everyone was in that category? They could claim 100% Ozzie employment - but no actual disposable income. LOL. This is the sort of rubbish stats that the Gummint & ABS include that mislead people into thinking our employment stats are so "wonderful".
Regarding the attached 2006 LFS breakdown of "employment by hours worked", note they include 525,900 people as having worked 0 hours!! LOL (I presume it really means from 0-1 hours?).
Also interesting to see how almost 40% of the part-timers (ie, PART TIME is those who were working between 0-35 hrs per week
during the survey period) were in the 1-15hrs per week bracket! I would guess the percentages in that bracket are a LOT higher atm.
So, my re-assessment would be that the real impact of falling national total hours of employment on GDP is a LOT WORSE than I previously had estimated, since the ABS appears to be including
all over 15's who work 0-35 hrs as being part-time employed!!
I'd love to see the current percentage breakdown in the LFS to compare it with the 2006 figures. Can't find it though.