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Back in April 2020, as the impacts of the COVID lock-downs took hold across Australia and the labour force data went into free-fall the ABS suspended their Trend series within the Labour Force Survey (and many other data releases). The reason for this was justified by the fact that the sudden and dramatic shifts in the underlying original data would have grossly distorted the Trend estimations (you can read a full explanation of those effects and the reasons for the Trend suspension here).
It now appears that the worst of the effects are now filtering through the data and it may not be too much longer before the ABS feels ready to reintroduce the Trend series. The graph below hopefully makes clear why…
Up to March 2020 the old ABS Trend (red) and our own old Conus Trend (green) were in very close agreement. However, once we add in the post-March 2020 original data (green dotted) we can see that the extreme movements in the original data have effects on the Conus Trend series back over about 2 years; we see the deviation of the Conus Trend (blue) from the old ABS and Conus Trends. However, those deviations have now reduced to a large extent…they were far greater had we looked at the same chart back in June last year.
Over coming months as the original series settles down, and the statistical models can wash through the massive effects seen in the earlier 2020 data, the distortions in the Trend series will largely disappear and we can hope that the ABS will feel ready to reintroduce the Trend series.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series