The January release of the Labour Force data is always a week later than the releases in other months as we enjoy the summer holidays. But the wait hasn’t improved the news. In December 2011, my headline was “everything is bad” meaning that the evil three – falling employment, rising unemployment and falling participation – had appeared. Today’s release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) of the Labour Force data for December 2011 shows that the deterioration in the Australian economy towards the end of the year gathered pace. The data shows that employment has fallen and the participation rate has fallen sharply. This is the worst combination that can occur indicating that job creation is declining, workers are leaving the workforce because of the lack of job opportunities and labour underutilisation is rising. So while the Government continues to pursue its obsession to get the budget back into surplus in the next year, it is actually only succeeding in undermining employment growth and prolonging unemployment. The most striking expression of how poor the Australian labour market is performing is the continued deterioration of the youth labour market. That should be a policy priority but unfortunately the government is largely silent on that issue. My assessment of today’s results are that – everything is bad and getting worse.