Australian householders are pretty sober about, and generally managing their household debts , a periodic study for ME has found.But job security and income security fears remain key risks."Income cuts, high levels of underemployment and record high job insecurity were also contributing to households' historically low comfort with income," ME's analyst said.In findings that will make lenders wary, one in three Australian households (34 per cent) reported 'job insecurity' - a record high and an increase of nine points over the year to December 2016. Furthermore, 56 per cent of households felt that they would 'struggle to find a new job within two months if they became unemployed', an increase of three points over the past year, while only 37 per cent said it would be 'easy to find a job', down three points in the past 12 months On the whole, households bothered about the job market are managing one facet of their risks by moderating on demand for debt and reducing the debt load where they can.Twenty eight per cent of households reportedly increased debt during 2016, ME said, "significantly lower than the corresponding figure of 32 per cent during 2015/16."On the other hand, there was a small increase in debt repayments, with 25 per cent of households reportedly decreasing debt during 2016, a couple of percentage points higher than during 2015/16.In December, the vast majority of households (63 per cent) expected to be able to pay a little or a lot more than the minimum payments on their debts over the next six to 12 months - a significant improvement on the corresponding figure of 57 per cent in June  and largely reflecting a fall in those that expected not to be able to meet the minimum payments (down five points to return to 5 per cent in December).