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Microburbs Property Data API

LGA - Economy

Unemployment by council area

GET/v1/lga/{lga_name}/economy/unemployment3¢ per call

Quarterly unemployment rate, number unemployed and labour force for every local council area since late 2010. Modelled estimates.

Coverage: 541 council areas, all states and territories; December quarter 2010 to June quarter 2026. Current to 2026-06-30. Full description, field list and method: /v1/datasets/unemployment-lga.

Authorization

Bearer tokentest

Sandbox key test works for the allowlisted GNAF + SAL — no signup.

Request

The only values you send. Fields under Responses below are what comes back — you never pass those.

Path parameters

lga_namestringrequired

Council (LGA) name exactly as /v1/lga/list returns it, e.g. `Lake Macquarie`.

Query parameters

fieldsstringoptional

Comma-separated subset of: unemployment_rate, unemployed_persons, labour_force. Omit for all.

fromstringoptional

First period to include: 2020, 2020-Q3, 2020-07 or 2020-07-01.

tostringoptional

Last period to include, same formats as `from`.

Responses

Successful Response

application/json

DatasetValuesfields returned to you

datasetstringalways returned

Dataset slug; describe it with /v1/datasets/{slug}.

levelstringalways returned

suburb, lga or block.

areastringalways returned

Canonical name (or mesh-block code) of the area answered.

period_typestringalways returned

snapshot, year, financial_year, quarter or month.

as_ofstring · datealways returned

Date the dataset is current to. Values are never withheld for age; check this instead.

modelledbooleanalways returned

True when the figures are estimates from a model rather than counts or measurements.

fieldsarray of DatasetFieldSeriesalways returned

GET/v1/lga/{lga_name}/economy/unemployment

cURL

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://api.microburbs.com.au/v1/lga/Lake%20Macquarie/economy/unemployment' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer test'

Example Responses

Show schema

{
  "data": {
    "dataset": "unemployment-lga",
    "level": "lga",
    "area": "Lake Macquarie",
    "period_type": "quarter",
    "as_of": "2026-06-30",
    "modelled": true,
    "fields": [
      {
        "field": "unemployment_rate",
        "name": "Unemployment rate",
        "unit": "%",
        "values": [
          {
            "period": "2025-Q4",
            "period_start": "2025-10-01",
            "value": 4.1
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q1",
            "period_start": "2026-01-01",
            "value": 4.5
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q2",
            "period_start": "2026-04-01",
            "value": 4.6
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "field": "unemployed_persons",
        "name": "Unemployed persons",
        "unit": "persons",
        "values": [
          {
            "period": "2025-Q4",
            "period_start": "2025-10-01",
            "value": 4780
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q1",
            "period_start": "2026-01-01",
            "value": 5163
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q2",
            "period_start": "2026-04-01",
            "value": 5232
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "field": "labour_force",
        "name": "Labour force",
        "unit": "persons",
        "values": [
          {
            "period": "2025-Q4",
            "period_start": "2025-10-01",
            "value": 115353
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q1",
            "period_start": "2026-01-01",
            "value": 114598
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q2",
            "period_start": "2026-04-01",
            "value": 114118
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Successful Response200

application/json

About this dataset

541 council areas, all states and territories; December quarter 2010 to June quarter 2026. Current to 2026-06-30; refreshed quarterly. These figures are modelled estimates.

What it is

Regional labour-market estimates for each local government area (council area), every quarter from December 2010 to the latest release.

What it shows

The unemployment rate (percent of the labour force), the estimated number of unemployed people, and the size of the labour force (people working or looking for work). Each figure is smoothed over four quarters.

Why use it

Local jobs drive rental demand, mortgage stress and price growth. Use it to compare a council area with its neighbours or the state, to spot areas where unemployment is rising before it shows up in rents and arrears, or to add an economic backdrop to a suburb report.

How it is built

National survey-based labour-force estimates are distributed to small areas using administrative data on income-support recipients and the latest population counts, then smoothed with a four-quarter average to remove sampling noise. Small councils (labour force under about 1,000) are volatile, and smoothing means the series lags turning points by a few months; compare the same quarter year on year. Remote communities can show very high rates (above 40%), which are genuine estimates, not errors.

Fields

Field	Unit	Description
`unemployment_rate` Unemployment rate	%	Share of the labour force that is unemployed, smoothed over four quarters.
`unemployed_persons` Unemployed persons	persons	Estimated number of unemployed people, smoothed over four quarters.
`labour_force` Labour force	persons	Estimated number of people employed or looking for work, smoothed over four quarters.