Indigenous adults aged 15 years or more are less likely than other Australians to be in paid employment.

Note: the figures in the graph include as "employed" all those Indigenous people working in the Community Development Employment Projects scheme (CDEP), which is a "work-for-the-dole" scheme operating in many Indigenous communities. Non-Indigenous Australians who participate in other work-for-the-dole schemes are not counted as employed, however. Although this is consistent with the way official employment figures are calculated in Australia, it means that the Indigenous disadvantage with respect to employment is under-estimated. This discrepancy in the treatment of seemingly similar work-for-the-dole schemes is due to a quirk of international labour conventions, and has to do with the nature of the relationship between the employer and the employee, which differs between CDEP and non-CDEP programs.