Qld off bottom of the unemployment ladder

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show Qld is no longer at the bottom of the unemployment ladder.

QUEENSLAND dragged itself off the bottom of the unemployment ladder in January but only by one spot after the state added 2,300 jobs in the month.

The new jobs helped bring the state’s unemployment rate down by 0.5 percentage points to 7 per cent, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.

Only South Australia, where unemployment jumped to 7.1 per cent, had a worse record for the month.

Nationally, the economy created nearly 30,000 jobs in January, bringing the unemployment rate down to 6.4 per cent.

The number of hours worked in January fell nearly 5 per cent from December 2020 as the nation treated itself to a summer break after a horror year.

ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said the latest figures showed the labour market recovery had continued into the new year.

“January 2021 was the fourth consecutive monthly rise in employment, as employment in Victoria continued to recover,” he said.

“Nationally, employment was only 59,000 people lower than March 2020, having fallen by 872,000 people early in the pandemic.”

But he noted the number of hours worked in January fell nearly 5 per cent from December 2020 as the nation treated itself to a summer break after a horror year.

“After a tough 2020, more Australians than usual took leave in the first two weeks of January, particularly full-time workers,” he said.

“This fall in hours worked is different to the falls across April and May 2020, which resulted from the restrictions in the labour market, rather than people taking leave.

“However, the number of employed people who worked zero hours in early January in the capital cities also reflects some ongoing effects of recent lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne.”

Gene Tunny, economist.

Adept Economics director Gene Tunny said Queensland’s recovery was likely to lag the national average throughout much of the recovery as the state had entered the COVID period with one of the highest unemployment rates.

“The fact that we are still higher than the national average I think reflects the fact that, going into COVID, we had more unemployed people so it’s more of a factor of what happened in the past,” he said.

And he warned the economy still faced a looming “fiscal cliff” in the next few months as massive government stimulus including the JobKeeper wage subsidy were due to wind down.

“That could end up slowing that recovery quite a lot over the next few months depending on households react to it and whether they do start spending all the savings they have accumulated during the COVID period,” he said.

“It’s all a bit uncertain. We should have a degree of confidence that we are recovering and will continue to recover but there is that risk around the shock of taking off JobKeeper and what happens to the tourism businesses around many parts of Australia.”