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| Coronavirus Australia live update: national unemployment rate falls as Victoria records 28 new Covid cases | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Covid-19 restrictions ease in regional Victoria today as economists and international students call for expansion of jobkeeper. Follow all today’s news | Covid-19 restrictions ease in regional Victoria today as economists and international students call for expansion of jobkeeper. Follow all today’s news |
| Queensland has recorded one new case of Covid - but it is linked to a known cluster and the person was already in self isolation | |
| Alan Joyce was on ABC radio this morning, AAP reports, where he was asked about the possibility of re-starting international flights, even if it was to help rescue the more than 27,000 Australians who have registered to come home - but have been unable to get flights (or keep getting bumped off flights) | |
| He wants the states to re-open its borders to kickstart domestic flights. | |
| The spirit of Australia. | |
| Just before the jobs figures were announced, Scott Morrison was speaking to the media at BlueScope Steel at Port Kembla. | |
| The prime minister was sticking with his position that the jobkeeper wage subsidy needed to be tapered because “keeping the Australian economy on life support” was not sustainable. But he added that the government would use next month’s budget to announce “a lot of new plans, a lot of new initiatives, that will see us grow out of this Covid recession”. | |
| Asked if we would see a truer representation of joblessness in Australia once the government ended jobkeeper, Morrison said he had always said the unemployment figure the country should be watching was not the measured rate of unemployment. | |
| “The measured rate of unemployment is one thing but we know it’s much higher than that. We know the effective rate of unemployment is well over 10% and can peak a lot higher than that … Treasury advises it’s going to stay up around that 14% mark, and we know that, and we want to see that come down, and it was falling before the Victorian wave hit us, and with Victoria opening up again we would expect to see that fall again. But you can’t keep the Australian economy on jobkeeper forever, that is not the way to do things. Currently it is costing about $11bn a month, there are a lot of other things we need to invest in for Australia’s growth.” | |
| Morrison mounted a broader defence of the government’s approach to Covid-19. He said Australia’s GDP was down, regrettably, by 7% in the June quarter, whereas New Zealand’s economy had shrunk by 12% in the same quarter. | |
| “New Zealand shut their industry down. We did not. I think we’ve made difficult but balanced decisions which means on health and on jobs and the economy we’re doing better than almost every other developed economy in the world.” | |
| Some 111,000 more people are in work, a 0.9% increase in the seasonally adjusted employment rate, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force stats just released. Between July and August hours worked also rose 0.1%.Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said: “Employment rose almost 1 per cent but hours worked rose by a more modest 0.1 per cent. Hours fell by 4.8 per cent in Victoria, compared to a 1.8 per cent increase across the rest of Australia.”“The weaker increase in hours worked has also been reflected in the strength of the increase in part-time employment between May and August, which has been almost eight times greater than the increase in full-time employment.”Employment growth was stronger for females (67,000 people or 1.1%) than males (44,000 or 0.7%). Hours worked also increased for females (0.2%), with no change for males, and remained around 4.7% and 5.9 per cent below March respectively.Other stats: | |
| Unemployment decreased by 87,000 people including 55,000 women | |
| Participation increased by just 0.1% | |
| The unemployment rate went down by 0.7% to 6.8% | |
| The underemployment rate remained at 11.2%, 2.4% above March. | |
| The underutilisation rate, which combines the unemployment and underemployment rates, fell 0.7% to 18.0%, but remained 4.7% higher than March. | |
| And here is why the headline unemployment rate can hide what is actually happening - | |
| Treasury’s Jenny Wilkinson has explained why companies that receive jobkeeper can still pay dividends and bonuses: | |
| It’s a real state-by-state story too, as Paul Karp shows here: | |
| Just more on the breakdown of the August unemployment figures: | |
| But just remember, the underlying unemployment rate - unemployment in real terms, is much, much higher. There are almost 1 million Australians out of work right now. The 0.7% fall from July to August in the unemployment rate looks like good news, but in real terms, unemployment is double what we are seeing here, hovering at around 13 to 14% | |
| Speaking of jobkeeper: | |
| Treasury officials are up at the Covid-19 committee, outlining coronavirus stimulus programs.Jenny Wilkinson, deputy secretary of the fiscal group, said so far $100bn has gone out the door and the government has committed $179bn, including: | |
| $12.3bn on the coronavirus supplement (up to 11 September); and | |
| $54.8bn paid out on jobkeeper (up to 14 September). | |
| Labor wants month by month figures, and is hunting for a concession that tapering jobkeeper and cutting the rate of the coronavirus supplement will hurt the economy. | |
| Luke Yeaman, deputy secretary of the macroeconomic group said: | |
| “It is the case that if you look at it in isolation the tapering will take some income out of the income, that is undisputed. There are a range of factors at play with respect to the aggregate economic outlook. One point I’d make is across large parts of the country [with the exception of Victoria] there is a continued upward trend of improvement in economic indicators, including some parts of the labour market.” | |
| Yeaman notes there “are other supports” and the savings rate shot up in the June quarter, meaning that some of the jobkeeper and jobseeker payments have been banked and will “continue to provide support” even after they’re tapered. | |
| Wilkinson agreed: “A reduction would result in less economic activity if you look at just that factor. “ | |
| And a note on who is considered unemployed by the ABS: | |
| So people on jobkeeper, who aren’t working, don’t count. | |
| This is also an important point from the ABS figures: | |
| Underutilisation | |
| The underemployment rate remained at 11.2 per cent, 2.4 percentage points above March. | |
| The underutilisation rate, which combines the unemployment and underemployment rates, fell 0.7 percentage points to 18.0 per cent, but remained 4.7 percentage points higher than March. | |
| The ABS has released August figures - and outside of Victoria, we have seen a rise in employment. That is good news. But there are still more than 900,000 people out of work and that will increase by the end of the year. | |
| From the ABS: | |
| Seasonally adjusted employment increased by 111,000 people (0.9 per cent) between July and August as hours worked rose 0.1 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). | |
| Employment and hours worked | |
| Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labour Statistics at the ABS, said: “Employment rose almost 1 per cent but hours worked rose by a more modest 0.1 per cent. Hours fell by 4.8 per cent in Victoria, compared to a 1.8 per cent increase across the rest of Australia.” | |
| “The weaker increase in hours worked has also been reflected in the strength of the increase in part-time employment between May and August, which has been almost eight times greater than the increase in full-time employment.” | |
| Employment growth was stronger for females (67,000 people or 1.1 per cent) than males (44,000 or 0.7 per cent). Hours worked also increased for females (0.2 per cent), with no change for males, and remained around 4.7 per cent and 5.9 per cent below March respectively. | |
| In original terms most of the employment growth in August was people employed as non-employees (mainly owner managers of enterprises without employees), with the number of employees remaining relatively similar to July. | |
| Unemployment and participation | |
| “The large increase in seasonally adjusted employment coincided with a large decrease in unemployment of 87,000 people, around 55,000 of whom were females,” Mr Jarvis said. | |
| However, the large changes in employment and unemployment did not coincide with a large increase in participation, with the participation rate increasing by just 0.1 percentage points. It remained 1.1 percentage points below March (when it was 65.9 per cent). | |
| “With participation relatively unchanged, the increase in employment and decrease in unemployment saw the unemployment rate decrease 0.7 percentage points to 6.8 per cent,” Mr Jarvis said. | |
| Q: The Prime Minister made comments he is grateful that regional Victoria is opening up and he thinks we should be opening up earlier. Are you taking that on board, at all? | Q: The Prime Minister made comments he is grateful that regional Victoria is opening up and he thinks we should be opening up earlier. Are you taking that on board, at all? |
| Daniel Andrews: | Daniel Andrews: |
| Will Victoria start taking returned travellers again anytime soon? | Will Victoria start taking returned travellers again anytime soon? |
| Daniel Andrews: | Daniel Andrews: |