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Job figures reveal not all doom and gloom after JobKeeper
Unemployment figures have surprised leading economists, with the end of JobKeeper failing to produce the much anticipated spike in job losses, official statistics show.
Job figures reveal not all doom and gloom after JobKeeper
Unemployment figures have surprised leading economists, with the end of JobKeeper failing to produce the much anticipated spike in job losses, official statistics show.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data shows the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage points to 5.5 per cent between March and April 2021 despite JobKeeper ending on 28 March.
Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said this was the sixth consecutive fall in the unemployment rate, down from 6.9 per cent in October 2020.
“The unemployment rate is now 0.2 percentage points (or 33,000 people) above the start of the pandemic. Importantly, it’s 2.0 percentage points below its peak in July 2020, when it was 7.4 per cent,” Mr Jarvis said.
Mr Jarvis noted that the end of JobKeeper wage subsidy did not have a discernible impact on employment.
“We have not seen large changes in the indicators that would suggest a clear JobKeeper impact, such as an increase in people working reduced or zero hours for economic reasons or because they were leaving their job. We also haven’t seen large net flows out of employment across many population groups,” Mr Jarvis said.
“Some of the 31,000 fall in employment may relate to the end of JobKeeper, but it could also reflect usual month-to-month variation in the labour market and some larger than usual seasonal changes similar to those we saw earlier in the year.”
He also pointed out that Australia’s youth, which were most heavily impacted by the recession, have bounced back.
“The youth unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since the Global Financial Crisis, reflecting a strong increase in employment for young men, following a number of increases for young women in recent months.”
Speaking at a post-budget briefing for the Australian Business Economists, Secretary to the Treasury, Dr Steven Kennedy, said that Treasury’s warning that as many as 150,000 jobs could go when JobKeeper ended on 28 March, has not been realised.
The actual estimates from single touch payroll microdata for the fortnight ending 11 April showed that between 16,000 to 40,000 former JobKeeper workers had lost employment.
“First, the JobKeeper payment ended on 28 March with over 1 million individuals still receiving the payment,” he said.
“The early indicators suggest that while there have been job losses associated with the end of the program, many of these workers appear to have found, or already had, other jobs and have benefited from the broader strength of the labour market. The transition appears to be similar to that experienced last year in October at the end of the first phase of the program.”
Dr Kennedy highlighted that a strong fiscal response had played its part in the reduction of the unemployment rate.
“After falling by 2.5 per cent in 2020, we now expect the economy to grow by 5¼ per cent in 2021, and by 2¾ per cent in 2022. This compares with last year’s budget forecasts for a fall of 3¾ per cent in 2020, and growth of 4¼ per cent in 2021,” said Dr Kennedy.
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