A surging Omicron variant ensured a tepid new year for jobs growth, with sick leave and absences reducing total time worked by 159 million hours over January.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday announced unemployment remained steady at a 13-year-low 4.2 per cent during the first month of the year, in line with market expectations.
There was, however, a near nine per cent fall in hours worked in January as more people than usual took annual leave and sick leave, exacerbating the supply chain issues caused by a as a surging Omicron wave.
“Nationally, and in New South Wales and Victoria, the number of people who worked reduced hours because they were sick was around three times the pre-pandemic average for January,” head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.
“In other states and territories, it was twice as many people. Western Australia was the only jurisdiction with a usual low number of people working reduced hours in January because they were sick.”
The number of people working no hours at all in a week because they were sick was particularly high at more than four times the pre-pandemic average.
At the peak of absences, Mr Jarvis said 3.4 per cent of Australia’s employed population were off work.
“January is the middle of summer and usually only around 90,000 to 100,000 people in Australia are away from work sick for an entire week. In January 2022 it was around 450,000 people,” Mr Jarvis said.
The number of jobs added to the economy softened from an additional 64,800 roles in December to just 12,900 in January, with a total 13.3 million people now employed.
Full-time employment took a hit during the month – with 17,000 jobs disappearing – although part-time employment increased by 30,000.
This pushed the underemployment rate up by 0.1 points to 6.7 per cent.
The ASX 200 ticked higher after the release of Thursday’s data while the Aussie dollar is hovering around 72 US cents.
