Daniel Wills: Jobs figures hide the truth that many more workers are still just hanging on for dear life
ANALYSIS: Shocking SA jobs figures hide the truth that many more businesses and workers are just hanging in for dear life. As lockdown lifts, the job on the economy isn’t even close to done.
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It’s worse than it looks, but not as bad as we feared.
The headline unemployment numbers that come out from the ABS don’t even go close to telling the full story.
We know that almost 50,000 South Australians have lost the dignity and security of work in just two months. Four years worth of hard grind to create more opportunity and livelihoods in SA have been undone in just two months of saving lives.
But we don’t know how many people are still at grave risk of joining tragically long dole queues as businesses teeter and taxpayer-backed wage subsidies are the only thing keeping them going.
And none of this has been anyone’s fault. A sore throat and cough in China sent shockwaves across the world.
The next months will define SA’s success. Businesses that hung tough through the worst are still on the brink.
SA can do its bit by spending what money can still be afforded in a local store. But everyone still looks to government for the biggest solutions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Premier Steven Marshall were unquestionably right to put emergency health controls in place.
Our results in that battle are the envy of the world.
But as agents of the recession that we couldn’t avoid, responsibility has fallen to them to engineer the recovery that need to have.
Lockdowns are lifting, and a rebuild starting, faster than anyone ever thought. A huge job is nowhere near done.