Long-term health conditions prevented around 700,000 Australians from finding a job in the last financial year.
New Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data showed there were 1.2 million people who didn’t have a paid job, but wanted a job in 2024-25.
ABS Head of Labour Statistics Sean Crick said almost half of the 1.2 million people who wanted a paid job in 2024-25 were unemployed.
Mr Crick said the rest were either not actively looking for work or not immediately available for work.
“There were around 700,000 people who had a long-term health condition and wanted a job,” he said.
“While long-term health conditions were a common reason people were unavailable to start work, not all people with a long-term health condition were unable to work.”
Mr Crick said insights into the labour force status showed there were also 800,000 people who worked part time and wanted more hours, with 89 percent of these people available to start working more hours within four weeks.
He said in 2024-25, there were 5.1 million parents with children aged under 15 years, with almost 700,000 parents not having a job, mostly (81 percent) mothers (560,000).
“For those parents who did not have a job, 16 percent were looking for work while 63 percent didn’t want a job.”
