Detracting from what is, on the face of it at least, a very, very good employment report for May, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has raised a warning flag on the result

The ABS says on the unprecedented surge in the raw employment numbers for Western Australia:

  • "Investigations showed that a significant contributor to this was change in response patterns from April to May 2015.
  • As a result, the ABS has removed this impact from the seasonally adjusted estimates for Western Australia and subsequently, Australia.
  • As the ABS is unable to remove this impact from the original estimates, care should be taken in comparing the original and seasonally adjusted estimates, particularly for Western Australia.
  • The ABS has not made any changes to its Labour Force Survey methods or processes that could have caused the increase."