Employment statistics by age

This post draws on another piece of old code that I have not looked at for some time. It needed some renovation to use new ABS codes in the data.

Let's start with participation rates by age. The post-GFC decline in 15 to 19 year old participation in the labour market is particularly marked among males. The same decline in 20 to 24 year olds is evident among males and females. The growth in participation rates for 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 year old people in the mid 1980s was largely driven by changes in female participation rates at that time. For those aged aver 55 years, we have seen a growth in their participation rates over the naughties, largely unaffected by the GFC.

On the unemployment rates, we can see the burden of unemployment rates falls with younger people. The over sixty unemployment rates were significantly affected by changes to social security arrangements at the time of the 1991-92 recession. The home brew seasonal adjustment, breaks down in these charts for those aged over 65 years.

Moving from rates to changes in numbers. First changes in the number employed by age. Collectively, these graphs show the progress of baby boomers through the age cohorts over time. These charts have been smoothed with a 13-term Henderson moving average (HMA).

The final set of charts looks at the change in the numbers of people either unemployment or not in the labour force (NILF). The stunning chart here is the growth in the numbers unemployed or not in the labour force aged over 65 years - again an artifact of the the post second world war baby boomers