After several months of very poor labour market news, today’s release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) of the Labour Force data for February 2013 provides some respite. In fact, all the main indicators moved in a virtuous direction, which is a welcome outcome. Caution is required in interpreting monthly data movements as the standard errors are larger than most would imagine. But there was a sharp rise in total employment reported by the ABS, the participation rate rose and monthly hours of work improved. Most of the rise in employment was in part-time jobs. This is the first month in several that employment growth has outstripped the underlying population growth rate. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.4 per cent but would have been 0.3 points lower had the participation rate not risen. So unemployment rose a little and hidden unemployment fell more. However, the continuing negative feature that should warrant immediate policy concern is the appalling state of the youth labour market. The 15-19 year old segment of the labour market continued to deteriorate even though part-time job opportunities surged. That is a deeply disturbing sign. Overall there are still at least 12.5 per cent of the willing work force without work (either unemployed or underemployed). So there is still a massive job shortage and today’s data shows that in February only a tiny fraction of that shortage was reduced. We will also await revisions!