Work and Travel to work

Information about workplace addresses helps us understand how people travel to work.

This information is combined with information about how people get to work and the availability and use of cars.

It is used to:

• plan roads
• plan public transport
• know where services are needed most.

Where people are during the day is also worked out from this information. This means that relevant services are put where people will be during the day, rather than where they live.

These questions are only asked of people aged 15 years and over. 

(Q47 in the Census Household Form)

This information is used to better understand where people travel for work to inform transport planning.

• Enter the address where the person worked, providing as much information (street number, street name, suburb or town) as possible.
• Include the name of the building or property where the person works, if known.
• For people who work for an employer, but work from home some of the time, provide the employer’s workplace address.
• For people who work from home only (that is, do not have another location to work from), provide the home address.
• For people with no fixed place of work (for example, a delivery driver or an in-home carer):
  • if the person travels to visit clients, provide the address of the employer
  • if the person usually travels to a depot to start work, provide the depot address
  • if the person otherwise has no fixed place of work, enter ‘NONE’ in the ‘Suburb/Locality’ box.
• Online form only: For Norfolk Island and other external territories, such as Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Jervis Bay, please select 'Other external territory' in the State/Territory box. 

(Q48 in the Census Household Form)

• Only answer this question for the person’s main job (the job where they worked the most hours) last week.
• Select all methods of travel used by the person to get to work on Tuesday 5 August 2025. For example, if they drove a car to a train station and then took a train to work, select both ‘Car – as a driver’ and ‘Train’.
• If the person used an Uber service, select 'Taxi or ride-share service'.
• If the person used an e-bike, select ‘Bicycle (including e-bike)’.
• If the person walked all the way to work, select ‘Walked only’.
• If the person walked some of the way to work, only include the transport used. For example, if they walked then caught the bus, select ‘Bus’ only.
• If the person worked from home, select ‘Worked at home’ only.
• Do not include methods of travel for the trip home.

(Q49 in the Census Household Form)

We ask this question to find out how much people are working. It is also used to understand how many people are working part-time and how many people are working full-time.

This question is only asked of people aged 15 years and over. 

Include:

• all hours the person worked in all of the jobs they had in the week before Census Test night, even if those are not their usual hours.
• any overtime and time worked from home for their job(s).

Don't include:

• time off work such as sick leave or annual leave, even if paid.

If the person did not work any hours: 

• Paper form only: Mark ‘None’
• Online form only: Enter ‘0’.

(Q50 in the Census Household Form)

Looking for work is an important step to people getting a job. We ask this question to understand whether people who do not have a job have been actively looking for full-time and/or part-time work.

It is important to collect information about people who are not working, as well as those who are working, to provide a complete picture of Australia’s existing and potential workforce.

This question is only asked of people aged 15 years and over who did not work (i.e. answered no to having a job in Q38) and said they were actively looking for work. 

• People should only answer yes to this question if they actively looked for work.
• Examples of actively looking for work include:
  • contacting employers directly
  • contacting employers through an employment agency
  • answering an advertisement for a job
  • having a job interview
  • taking steps to purchase or start a business
  • advertising or tendering for work.
• Full-time work means 35 hours or more per week. Part-time work is anything less than 35 hours.
• If the person looked for both full-time and part-time work, select 'Yes, looked for both full-time and part-time work'.
• If the person only looked for full-time work, select ‘Yes, looked for full-time work’.
• If the person only looked for part-time work, select ‘Yes, looked for part-time work’.
• If the person did not look for work, select 'No, did not look for work'. This includes retired people.
• If the person only looked in newspapers, on the internet or checked notice boards, select 'No, did not look for work'.

(Q51 in the Census Household Form)

We ask this question, along with the question on whether a person is actively looking for work, to identify unemployed people. This question is only asked of people aged 15 years and over who did not work (answered ‘no’ to having a job in Q38).

• We only ask this question if people said that they were actively looking for work. Please select the answer that applies to the person.