Last month my Labour Force commentary was entitled – Australian labour market – good signs but wait for the reversal. It didn’t take very long for the reversal to come, although I caution anyone drawing trends from month-to-month variations in this sort of data. Today’s release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) of the Labour Force data for June 2012 reveals a weakening labour market with all the negative signs concurring – falling full-time employment, falling participation, falling hours worked and rising unemployment. If the labour force had not have contracted due to the falling participation rate, the unemployment rate would have been closer to 5.5 per cent rather than 5.2 as officially recorded. Certainly this data is not consistent with any notions that the Australian labour market is booming or close to full employment. The most continuing feature that should warrant immediate policy concern is the appalling state of the youth labour market. My assessment of today’s results – weak and weakening.