The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the Labour Force data today for May 2011 which shows that the labour market is in a very weak state. Full-time employment collapsed further (having falling sharply last month) and part-time employment growth was very weak. Employment growth is failing to keep pace with population growth which means that no dent is being made in the very high labour underutilisation rates. Total working hours barely moved and total labour underutilisation (the sum of unemployment and underemployment) rose from 11.9 to 12.2 per cent. The teenage labour market remained in an appalling state. Even the usually optimistic bank economists (who predicted that employment growth would have been much stronger than it was) are starting to sound circumspect in media interviews today – “weakness”, “softness”, “poor result” – were descriptors that were heard today. The Australian economy is nowhere near full employment and the slack increased in May 2011.