Qld jobless figure to hit 9 per cent by Christmas

While the unemployment rate may have improved on the national front, Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick has warned locals that things may get a lot worse here before they get better.

Despite a shock drop in the national unemployment rate, Queensland is still bracing for its jobless figure to bottom out at 9 per cent in December.

Latest labour force statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows unemployment from July to August fell 6.8 per cent, with the total number of unemployed people decreasing by 87,000 over the period.

In July, unemployment reached 7.5 per cent with a number of economists expecting the figure would worsen due to stage four lockdown measures imposed in Victoria.

The participation rate only improved by 0.1 percentage points over the month.

“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,” ABS head of labour statistics, Bjorn Jarvis said.

Treasurer Cameron Dick. Picture: Peter Wallis

But Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick, who hasn’t fronted press conferences in recent days without the Government’s economic recovery brochure, said today’s figures indicated how volatile economic data was during COVID-19.

“Those states and jurisdictions that had the best result and the lowest fall in unemployment were the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland,” he said.

“Strong borders means a strong economy.”

But he conceded the coming months would be challenging for Queensland and that things may get worse before they get better.

“JobKeeper is in a sense impacting on the unemployment figures,” he said.

“Of course the Victorian economy has effectively collapsed but the truth is almost every worker in Victoria now is on JobKeeper and anyone who’s on JobKeeper is not included in these statistics.”

Queensland’s unemployment rate has lifted to 7.5 per cent while Victoria’s has lifted to 7.1 per cent.