State Budget 2017-18: Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis is facing a huge job as SA struggles with unemployment

SOUTH Australia’s rate of employment growth has been stuck at less than half the national average since Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis handed down his first “jobs Budget” in 2015.

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SOUTH Australia’s rate of employment growth has been stuck at less than half the national average since Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis handed down his first “jobs Budget” in 2015.

Mr Koutsantonis will today hand down the final State Budget before the March election, which is being sold as the third in a row focused on fixing SA’s unemployment crisis.

Analysis by The Advertiser has revealed SA added 12,700 jobs in the past two years, following a pair of budgets in which Mr Koutsantonis pledged the staged abolition of stamp duties for businesses and wage subsidies of up to $10,000 for employers who take on new workers.

Tom Koutsantonis said SA’s new jobs were being created with severe “headwinds”.

Had SA just kept pace with the national growth rate, 27,370 jobs would have been added.

Figures released this month again showed SA with the highest unemployment rate in the nation. In addition, the number of people with a job but not enough hours also hovers at a 20-year high.

The number of jobs added in SA since 2015 marks a turnaround from previous years in which the total number of jobs went backwards.

However, SA still badly lags behind the eastern states.

SA’s jobs growth rate of 1.5 per cent over the past two years is less than half the national level of 3.4 per cent.

Victoria, which is also battling a car industry closure and emerging energy crisis, is leading the nation in new jobs and growing at a rate more than four times that of SA.

Australian Industrial Transformation Institute director John Spoehr yesterday said the Budget must match a short-term plan that offers hope for thousands of people about to lose their jobs in the automotive sector with a vision for structural reform that rapidly expands new industries.

Junior engineer Klyde Goding at Magill SupaShock on Wednesday, where Premier Jay Weatherill announced a $5000 boost in job accelerator grants for apprentices.

Prof Spoehr said Sydney and Melbourne, as “global cities”, had become hubs for services such as banking and finance. “They’re a beneficiary of having a large number of the head offices,” he said. “We don’t have that advantage and are unlikely to be able to experience the same sort of growth.”

He said new transport infrastructure could create construction jobs in the short term, while expanding a huge potential for getting high-quality food to large markets in Asia.

UniSA Business School Adjunct Professor Dick Blandy said the State Government must stop spooking the investment market by trying to “pick winners” and instead lower tax rates to encourage businesses to move to or expand in SA.

“We’ve been in a pathetic state for 30 years and continue with the development model that says ‘this is a company state and the main company is the SA Government’,” he said. “If the

STATE BUDGET: FULL COVERAGE FROM 3PM THURSDAY — MAIN WRAP, ANALYSIS, FIVE-MINUTE GUIDE

Government is willing to pick its own winner in an area, there’s no way you’d invest in this state knowing you could be knocked off tomorrow.”

Mr Koutsantonis yesterday said Victoria’s growth was underpinned by extremely rapid population growth, while SA’s new jobs were being created with severe “headwinds”.

“The unemployment rate is unacceptable,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can.

“A lot of these things are governed by external forces that we can’t control. I can’t imagine what it would be like if we hadn’t have intervened in 2015 and 2016 to cut taxes and do stimulus.”