What are ABS SA4 and Employment Regions?

Labour Force Regions (ABS SA4)

Labour Force Regions are areas defined by the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

  • They are the largest geographic areas defined within each State and Territory.
  • We show information for 87 Labour Force Regions.
  • These cover the whole of Australia without any gaps or overlaps.

Most of the information we show for Labour Force Regions comes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force Survey. Labour Force Regions have been specifically designed for the reporting of labour market data from the ABS Labour Force Survey.

Note: Labour Force Regions are referred to as Statistical Areas Level 4 (SA4s) in the ASGS.

Employment Regions

Employment service providers are contracted to provide employment services in Employment Regions.

  • There are 51 Employment Regions.
  • They do not cover all of Australia.

While Employment Regions are not part of the ASGS structure, we produce data for Employment Regions by finding the best match to one or more ASGS regions.

Statistical Areas Level 4 (SA4) based regions

  • 45 regions are made up of one or more Statistical Areas Level 4 (SA4s).
  • Monthly ABS Labour Force Survey data is used to produce information for the SA4-based regions.

Statistical Areas Level 2 (SA2) based regions

  • 6 regions are based on Statistical Areas Level 2 (SA2s). These are smaller areas within an SA4.
  • As the SA2-based regions do not align with SA4s, monthly ABS Labour Force Survey data cannot be used for these regions.
  • We provide a limited range of information from other sources for these regions.
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