Employee absences play part in July payroll jobs fall

The July figures fell 0.8 per cent in the month to 16 July 2022 and Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said while some of the fall in payroll jobs reflected the seasonal influence of school holidays on the labour market, together with end-of-financial year seasonality in payroll reporting, it also covers a period with increasing employee absences from COVID and other illnesses.

“During periods of high employee absences, we’ve seen that payroll jobs data can show slower growth and larger short-term changes than Labour Force statistics on employment, given employees without paid leave entitlements may be away from work for a short period without losing their job,” he said.

The interpretation of change in payroll jobs around the end of financial year can be particularly challenging, until business reporting is more complete.

“As employers finalise their employees’ earnings information and the financial year is reset in payrolls, estimates of payroll jobs can show a higher level of variation and subsequent revisions, particularly around June and July,” Mr Jarvis said.

The employee absences up to mid-July 2022 followed a sequence of labour market disruptions outside of seasonality, as seen in previous years.

“While employee absences have impacted on week-to-week changes in payroll jobs in recent months, underlying growth has generally continued through the year. By mid-July 2022, payroll jobs were 4.5 per cent above mid-July 2021 and 9.9 per cent above mid-July 2020,” Mr Jarvis said.

“This also reflects what we have seen in terms of increases in payroll jobs since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, with around 8 per cent more payroll jobs in mid-July 2022, compared with around 4 per cent more by mid-July 2021.”

Payroll jobs fell in all states and territories in the month to mid-July, with the largest falls in the Northern Territory (down 1.2 per cent) and Victoria (down 1.1 per cent).  Most states and territories saw the majority of the fall in the second fortnight of the month.

Over the month to mid-July, payroll jobs fell for both men (down 1.1 per cent) and women (down 0.7 per cent).

“While the recent changes in payroll jobs were relatively similar for men and women, over the past year there has been a much larger increase in payroll jobs worked by women – 3.7 per cent, compared with 0.3 per cent for men,” Mr Jarvis said.