5000 Territorians vanish from workforce as unemployment rate falls

More than 5000 Territorians have vanished from the NT’s workforce in an anomaly unlike other jurisdictions in Australia, new labour force data has revealed.

MORE than 5000 Territorians have vanished from the NT’s workforce in an anomaly unlike other jurisdictions in Australia, new labour force data has revealed.

This comes as the federal government announced a new $2 billion stimulus package to train and upskill job seekers.

Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to a two-decade high of 7.4 per cent in June despite the creation of 210,800 jobs.

This is due to more people venturing back out to look for work.

Meanwhile, the NT’s unemployment rate improved from 7.4 per cent in May to 5.7 per cent in June. But behind the improvement is 5300 people leaving the NT workforce entirely, meaning they are not currently looking for work.

And most of them, 3800 specifically, were men.

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In another twist, the NT’s biggest employer, the healthcare and social assistance sector, shed 10 per cent of jobs between the start of the pandemic and the end of June.

Grattan Institute economist Brendan Coates theorised that the NT’s situation could be the result of two opposing flows, considering it has done better than most jurisdictions in terms of opening up businesses and borders earlier.

Firstly that workers that were temporarily furloughed due to spatial distancing restriction shutdowns had now returned to work, while a second group of people from different industries had lost their jobs.

Mr Coates said it was possible the people who had recently lost their jobs were not currently looking for work because they could be on JobSeeker or hadn’t yet started looking for work.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Chief Minister Michael Gunner confirmed the NT had signed up to the federal government’s JobTrainer program, where both levels of government will co-fund the scheme to give jobs seekers access to free or cheap training courses. The NT government will spend $5 million on JobTrainer.