Where most jobs have been lost in the Northern Territory

Young NT workers are losing jobs twice as fast as middle-aged employees, fuelling fears they may never afford a home or have kids. They are also facing more competition. SEE THE LIST

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Young Australians are getting sacked twice as fast as middle-aged workers, with the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out hundreds of thousands jobs in the past six months.

One in every 16 jobs held by workers in their 20s has vanished since March, as lockdowns and border closures smash the tourism, hospitality and retail sectors.

One in 40 middle-aged workers in their 40s and 50s has been sacked during the pandemic.

Baby Boomers have been harder-hit, with one in nine workers in their 70s and one in 16 workers in their 60s made redundant.

 Centre for Future Work senior economist Alison Pennington yesterday warned a generation of young Australians could miss out on stable jobs, home ownership and having children.

“Full-time jobs are being replaced by smaller part-time jobs that are more likely to be insecure and casual,’’ she said.

“We will have a generation of Australians locked out of decent work, owning a home, making a family and building a sense of belonging in Australia.’’

The federal government is trying to cushion job losses for Millennials by spending $4 billion in a new JobMaker plan, to pay employers up to $200 a week to hire jobless people aged 16 to 35.

The government will also pay half the wages of 100,000 new apprentices and trainees.

Ms Pennington said older workers who lose full-time work now risk being unemployed for the rest of their lives.

“We’re looking at hundreds of thousands of older workers who’ll be piecing together an income through low-skilled part-time jobs, biding their time before they can get the pension at 66,’’ she said.

Across the Northern Territory, one in 55 jobs has been wiped out during the pandemic.

Barkly Shire, including Tennant Creek, was the hardest-hit area of the Northern Territory, losing one in 12 jobs.

In Katherine, one in 15 jobs vanished, compared to one in 27 jobs in Alice Springs and one in 34 jobs in Darwin.

Olivia Piccinin, 22, lost her dream job in the travel industry at the start of the pandemic.

She said the scramble to land another job was “like a war where you have to grab what you can get” but she eventually found a receptionist role before being stood down again.

“It’s been a bad year and 2020 was meant to be my year, at my tourism job they were sending me to Peru for two weeks, doing this amazing itinerary,” she said.

Olivia Piccinin, 22, lost her job in tourism in March when the pandemic hit. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Olivia said she knew she was fortunate compared to many others and has found the time to put more energy into a family candle business, Velvet Aroma.

“It was stressful at times,” she said.

“But I’m just really grateful I have a roof to sleep under — if you don’t have your dream job you can work to get that back, at least you have your health and your family and everyone is safe.”

New payroll data from the Australian Taxation Office, analysed by News Corp, reveals the hardest-hit suburbs and regions across the country.

The worst-hit industry is aviation, with 41 per cent of jobs wiped out during the pandemic.

One in five jobs was lost in the tourism, film, creative and performing arts industries, and 17 per cent of workers were sacked from the hospitality and restaurant sector.

But jobs rose 12 per cent in the gas supply sector, 5 per cent in electricity supply, and 8 per cent in the household services such as cleaning.

Soaring demand for cleaning products and hand sanitiser boosted jobs by 7 per cent in the chemical product manufacturing sector.

Hospital employment rose 3 per cent, and public service jobs rose 4 per cent.

The tax data, published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is based on employers with a Single Touch real-time payroll system.

JOBS 360 is a roundtable discussion that will explore how we can fix our national jobs crisis.