Australia's jobless rate rose from 3.9 per cent to 5.7 per cent in just over a year. The news was dramatically worse for 15 to 19-year-olds, the jobless rate climbing from 12 to 16 per cent.
Access Economics is this morning predicting an unemployment queue of 1 million by the end of next year. The queue swelled by 50,000 to 650,000 in the past month, and has jumped by 200,000 in the past year.
The figures — described by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard as "dreadful" — came amid forecasts that construction will be the next sector to abandon workers.
Ms Gillard said Australians who were "obviously not the people who caused the global recession" were losing jobs through no fault of their own.
But when asked whether she would increase the unemployment benefit, presently just $32 a day, she gave no commitment.
Asked the times whether she herself could live on that amount the Deputy Prime Minister failed to reply and then closed the press conference...
The government has given a commitment to increase the pension in next month's budget, but not the unemployment benefit which is substantially lower.
"We want to do everything we can to make periods of unemployment as short as possible to assist people to get back into work, whereas we know that there are many elderly Australians who live on the pension for a very long period of time - decades - and so of course those pensions and benefits have always been viewed differently by government," Ms Gillard said.
The head of the Centre for Full Employment and Equity at the University of Newcastle Professor Bill Mitchell said Australia's labour market was now deteriorating faster than had the labour market in the United States.
"If things continue to get worse at this rate the unemployment rate would approach 14 per cent by the end of the year," he said. "That will not happen, but it puts into perspective the government's forecast of a 7 per cent by mid-2010, on which they based their $42 billion stimulus package."
"From her on things will get worse. We're near the beginning of the labour market adjustment," said ANZ economist Riki Polygenis.
"We are in recession. That debate is no longer material," said JP Morgan economist Stephen Walters. "First we saw firms cut contractors and their temporary staff. They've moved through the phase now of cutting hours worked and finally we have reached the point where they are reluctantly cutting staff."
NSW lost the most jobs in March, shedding 16000 workers and setting an Australian record for the biggest monthly jump in a state unemployment rate - from 5.9 to 6.9 per cent.
Victoria's unemployment rate edged up 0.2 points to the new national average of 5.7 per cent, and the former boom states of Western Australia and Queensland recorded sharp rises to 4.8 and 4.9 per cent.
"The job losses began months ago in the retail industry," said Access Economics director Chris Richardson. Now they have spread to finance, hitting NSW and to mining, hitting the far flung states. Manufacturing has been doing badly for some time so Victoria has been in a steady decline, but the reasons have changed. Manufacturing jobs were being lost as a result of the high exchange rate, now they are being lost because people have stopped buying cars and machinery."
Mr Richardson said the decline in manufacturing jobs would soon stop, "when the last textile clothing and footwear factory in Richmond closes," with the next jobs to be lost in commercial construction.
"Construction accounts for almost 1 in every 10 jobs, substantially more than it used to. When the current work finishes in six months time it'll shed jobs for 6 to 18 months," he said.
The true state of the labour market is worse than yesterday's figures suggest. Officially, 33600 jobs have been lost in the last two months, but full-time employment has collapsed by more than 90000 as employers have downsized hours in an effort to keep staff while cutting costs.
The shift has meant that the net job losses have been borne by men. Female employment has been steady since the start of the year.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said the $23 billion handed out in stimulus payments had failed to have an effect.
"It was going to promote employment and create jobs," he said.
"Well it has created nothing except an enormous debt that we will spend many years, high taxes and high interest rates, paying off."
Deputy Prime Minister Gillard said without the payments the jobs figures would have been worse. She left open the possibility of further stimulus programs.
4 comments:
It is always going to be politically difficult in Australia to meaningfully increase the rate of unemployment benefits. Populist politicians and their rabble rousing friends in certain sections of the media would have a field day with the simplistic "headline issue" of rewarding bludgers, destroying incentive, etc. There would also be the obvious economic cost.
I suspect that we may need to move away from the concepts & language of "welfare" & "benefits" to improve the lot of the unemployed - or at least ameliorate the individual & social harms of unemployment. I copped the last major recession in the neck and found that the poverty of unemployment "benefits" simply compounds the social isolation of unemployment.
Perhaps we need to look at something along the lines of a co-contribution scheme for employed people , branded as "insurance", and/or a loan system similar to that available to Austudy recipients where repayments are contingent on income passing a certain threshold. All the better if these could be also be used as a channel to nudge people towards meaningful training, education, volunteering activities that would help maintain some sort of social participation & engagement.
I think you're being hard on Julia. I'm sure the real reason she was a bit lost on the question is because the dole is actually $32.38 a day, which is clearly much better ;-)
However, if you think that's bad, a single adult on Austudy is getting $26.53 a day. Luxury.
- spog
I agree with badm0f0 above in that there needs to be a change in terminology away from the bigotry of the 'shame shame shame' and 'bludgers' used against the unemployed.
The shameful facts are that many unemployed are so for very long perionds and you would not want to employ them anyway for which governments must take responsibility in the areas of poor social policy and education.
Also, Government policy deliberately keeps a pool of unemployed to increase competition for jobs and so keep labout costs down. They could have full employment overnight if they wanted to.
Therefore, government and society owes the unemployed a decent standard of living.
The long term unemployed should not be exempt from mutual obligation however but the requirements need to shift from looking for work to attending courses funded by the government on lifeskills.
Many of these people have huge gaps in their education, need psychological counselling, have addictions, have health problems and obesity, have poor parenting and cooking skills, and generally need to be brought back into civilised society.
Even with intervention they still may not be fit for employment but they at least will better serve two purposes. One being part of that 'pool', and the other to not bring another generation of dysfunctional beings to working age.
I agree with all the above, with one exception. I object to the type-casting of the unemployed as being "dysfunctional", with all the problems that Saliet Green lists. Many, and increasingly more, are educated, capable, socially-responsible people who have been laid off or otherwise lost jobs through no fault of their own.
The problem with retraining is that employers will not consider hiring people without recent experience in exactly that job. If they do, they will take a young person over an older one - cheaper, and considered easier to train. It is a two-way street, and employers need reeducating as much as the unemployed.
The rate of the dole is disgraceful. The rental allowance needs to be urgently increased dramatically to avoid a mass surge in homelessness. A car allowance would also help, especially where there is no public transport. A vehicle is often a prerequisite for employment in today's society, but increasingly expensive, in part due to onerous CTP insurance.
Do I know what I am talking about? Every time I came on the job market, starting in 1974, there was a recession. No work, so back to uni, with occasional odd jobs - security staff, waitress, cleaner etc. Ended up with a doctorate - more accurately, doctored - and too old, too qualified, "too narrow", too inexperienced, too threatening to the boss, for any job. Lived in my car for years, in between friend's spare rooms, house sits, cheap rentals. Went on the DSP so I could avoid being held back by a punitive dole system and also travel to look for work, and got a few contracts. A major drawback was that I was limited by being unable to afford stable accommodation. Tried retraining in a different field, but eventually gave up. Never did drugs, drank, or smoked,no illegitimate child, no trouble with the law, no debts, born Australia, native English speaker, no major health problems.
Just not wanted by society.
Post a Comment