Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures released today show that 11 per cent of families with dependants in June 2012 had no one in the family who was working.

ABS Director of Labour Force, Cassandra Gligora said today's Labour Force Status and Other Characteristics of Families publication uses data from the ABS Labour Force survey to understand the labour force status of Australian families. 

"While just over one in ten families with dependants were jobless in June 2012, this proportion has remained stable over recent years," Ms Gligora said.

"Over one-third of one parent families with dependants were jobless compared to one in 25 couple families with dependants. Of the jobless one parent families, 89 per cent were single mother families. 72 per cent of jobless single mothers had children under 10 years old living with them."

"There were 638,400 dependants aged under 25 living in a jobless family, and 83 per cent were children under 15 years," she said.

The survey also found that 62 per cent of couple families with dependants had both partners working. In opposite-sex couple families, 90 per cent had fathers who were employed and 67 per cent had employed mothers. Most of these employed fathers (92 per cent) were in full-time employment, while full-time employment for these mothers increased as the age of their youngest child increased - 19 per cent with 0-4 year olds, compared to 41 per cent with 15-24 year old students.

There were 1.4 million dependent students aged 15 to 24 years attending school or studying full-time and still living with their parents in June 2012.

There were an estimated 6.4 million families living in Australia with a total of 19.4 million family members, of which 5.7 million were dependants aged under 25 years.

More details are available in the June 2012 issue of Labour Force, Australia: Labour Force Status and Other Characteristics of Families (cat. no. 6224.0.55.001) available for free download from the ABS website<www.abs.gov.au>