Unemployment falls again - At 5.5% in Dec 09

Good news for the Australian Economy once again. ABS has reported that the unemployment rate fell to 5.5% in December from 5.6% in November (seasonally adjusted).
Main reasons for this reduction; an increase in part time employment for 27,900 people (taking part time employment to 3.271 million. Full time employment also increased by 7,300 people (full time aggregate employment is now at 7.6 million people).
However it is important to understand what the definition of what is being measured here. The ABS conducts a survey to 0.33% of the population of Australia (over the age of 15) and asks whether the respondent has worked for 1 hour for pay or profit in the last week (or are employed to do so). If so, they are counted as employed. Unemployed people are defined as people 15 years and over who are not employed but have actively searched for work in the past week and could start work in that reference week if required.
Full time work is defined as working over 35 hours, Part time is any employed person working less than that (so includes casuals).
Participation rate (also measured) is the percentage of the working age population (over 15) who are employed or unemployed.
So there are a few issues here. Firstly, those that have dropped out of the labour force for various reasons are not listed in the unemployment stats. However, they can be calculated by looking at the Participation rate. In December, the participation rate has remained pretty consistent. At the moment it is at 65.2%, down from the heights of 65.5% in April 2008, but still higher than the 30 year average of 62.8%. In December the male participation rate climbed 0.1% to 72.2% (long term average, 74.4%) while the female participation rate remained at 58.5% (long term average 51.6%) So it appears that generally, those that are able to work, either are or are looking.
Another thing to consider is the hours worked. One of the interesting things about the GFC was the lack of mass redundancies in Australia when companies started to feel the pinch and profits fell. Due to the flexibility of the industrial relations legislation, employers decided to reduce hours rather than remove workers. So examining the hours worked is also a good indicator of how the employment situation is going. Unfortunately, in December, the number of hours worked decreased from 1536587.4136 thousand hours to 1535554.6371 (Males gained 2000 thousand hours, females lost 3000 thousand hours) resulting in a loss of around 1 million hours in total (a very small change).
So all up, things are looking good in the employment market in Australia. Even youth unemployment (15-19) has reduced from 16.9% to 16.4% and young adult (15-24) has reduced from 11.5% to 11.3% . So not a lot wrong with the employment sector at the moment.