Australia's Real Unemployment Jumps to 11.7% as 128,000 Jobs Vanish in June

Q: Why did full-time employment surge by 151,000 even as the overall Australian job market weakened significantly?

The 151,000 rise in full-time employment was likely not a sign of a strengthening labour market, but a shift in how jobs were classified and distributed. Roy Morgan’s June figures show the overall market still weakened sharply: total employment fell by 128,000, unemployment jumped by 156,000, and the main drag came from a 279,000 collapse in part-time employment. That means the increase in full-time jobs was more than offset by losses elsewhere. A key explanation from the broader reporting is the impact of Fair Work “Closing Loopholes” reforms introduced across 2025 and 2026. Those changes tightened the definition of casual work and strengthened pathways for long-term casuals with regular hours to convert to permanent roles. In practice, some workers who had previously been counted as casual or part-time may have been reclassified into full-time positions, lifting the full-time tally without reflecting a broad-based hiring boom. The June data also suggest a compositional shift rather than genuine labour-market strength. Full-time unemployment also rose by 93,000, showing that even as more people were counted in full-time roles, more people were also looking for full-time work and not finding it. At the same time, higher interest rates, weak consumer demand, cost pressures and the oil shock were weighing on business hiring. So the full-time surge appears to reflect reclassification and uneven job reshuffling, not a healthy expansion in employment.

2 articles · Updated · roymorgan.com · Jul 13

1.86 million Australians were unemployed in June, up 156,000 from May, lifting Roy Morgan’s “real” unemployment rate by 1 percentage point to 11.7%.
128,000 jobs were lost overall, with part-time employment plunging 279,000 to 4.96 million even as full-time employment rose 151,000 to 9.07 million.
15.9 million people were in the workforce, up 28,000, but that increase was driven by more people looking for work — including 93,000 more seeking full-time jobs and 63,000 more seeking part-time jobs.
3.35 million Australians were either unemployed or under-employed in June, or 21.1% of the workforce, extending labour under-utilisation above 3 million for a 19th straight month.