South Australia’s jobless rate for March falls but remains worst in Australia

South Australia’s unemployment rate has improved – but it is still the worst in the country, new figures show.

South Australia has again recorded the worst unemployment rate in the nation, but there are signs of improvement.

New Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on Thursday show SA’s unemployment rate for the month of March was 6.3 per cent, down from 6.8 per cent in the previous month.

It is the third month in a row the state has had the highest jobless rate in the country.

The next highest unemployment rate belonged to Victoria at 6.1 per cent, though the national rate fell to 5.6 per cent.

SA’s participation rate – the total number of people employed or looking for work – dropped to 61.9 per cent, becoming the equal lowest in the country alongside Tasmania.

Figures also show SA is the only state to record a drop in the number of employed people since the start of the pandemic – falling from 857,300 people in March 2020 to 846,800 last month.

However, business conditions in SA were the best in the nation last month, according to the latest NAB Monthly Business Survey released earlier this week.

It showed seasonally adjusted business conditions in the state soared to 32.5 index points in the lead up to the end of JobKeeper on March 31.

Economists have widely predicted that JobKeeper ending would not cause a major economic setback – but the full extent of the wind-up of the wage subsidy won’t become clear until the April and May Labour Force statistics are released.

Opposition treasury spokesman Stephen Mullighan said the unemployment rate “artificially” dropped to 6.3 per cent, because fewer people were looking for work.

“Our participation rate continues its free fall, meaning fewer South Australians are actively engaged in the jobs market.”

Innovation and Skills Minister David Pisoni referred to statistics released earlier this month, which showed SA had 19,300 job vacancies in February – the highest number of vacancies in the state’s history.

“There’s never been a better time to go out and look for a new job,” he said.

“Many of those job vacancies are in the construction sector with an 11 per cent surge in dwelling unit commencements in South Australia during the December quarter resulting in a total of 3,089 individual commencements, 6.4 per cent higher than a year earlier,” he said.

The State Government used the latest Single Touch Payroll data, released on Tuesday, to boast having the highest increase of employee jobs since April last year.

The numbers showed payroll jobs increased by 12.5 per cent, above the national average of 10.2 per cent.

According to the ABS website, Single Touch Payroll numbers are “experimental estimates” compiled in near real time and published fortnightly.

Only jobs where payments are reported to the ATO through the Single Touch Payroll system are included in the dataset.

The government’s frequent use of the statistics often draws the ire of Opposition members, who say it is limited in scope when compared with the more comprehensive Labour Force figures.

[e-mail]