Payrolls data shows 780,000 jobs lost in first three weeks of April

One in 10 Australians under 20 lost their jobs as the coronavirus hammered employment in first three weeks of April.

A man walks past a Sydney bus stop where advertising boards displaying thankyou messages for health workers. Picture: AAP

The COVID-19 crisis has led to the loss of 780,000 jobs over the three weeks to April, with the young and cafe and restaurant workers bearing the brunt of the hit.

New weekly payroll data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed the first, robust look at the devastating impact of the pandemic on employment over the past month, and how the bulk of the job losses were triggered by the closure of non-essential businesses from March 23.

The figures showed that one in ten of those under the age of 20 years lost employment between March 14 – when Australia recorded its first 100 coronavirus cases – and April 4.

A quarter of employees in the accommodation and food services industry lost their jobs over the period, the data revealed.

Scott Morrison described reports of hundreds of thousands of lost jobs as “deeply disturbing”. The Prime Minister also detailed there had been 517,000 new claims for JobSeeker payments over the past six weeks – equivalent to the total number of applications in a typical year.

Mr Morrison said the government had “seen a slowing in the rate of claims, but the levels of claims are still high”.

The new ABS data release draws on information from all employing businesses which report through the single touch payroll system to the Australian Taxation Office, which covers nearly all large and medium sized businesses, and around 70 per cent of small businesses.

The labour shedding accelerated through the period, with 90 per cent of the job losses coming in the final week to April 4, the data showed.

ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said “looking at the week-to-week changes, the decrease in jobs in the week ending 4 April 2020 was 5.5 per cent, significantly larger than the 0.5 per cent decrease in the week ending 28 March 2020”.

If the 6 per cent plunge in jobs is replicated in the April labour force data, it would result in a 780,000 drop in employment based on 13 million employed Australians, and point towards an unemployment rate approaching 11 per cent, IFM Investors chief economist Alex Joiner said.

NAB economist Kaixin Owyong said the job losses pointed to the risk of “an even sharper rise in unemployment” than the bank’s 12 per cent forecast rate by mid-year.

Total wages paid fell by a larger 6.7 per cent over the period, suggesting there was an additional segment of workers who held onto their jobs, but suffered some loss of income. Wages paid to workers under the age of 20 collapsed by 13 per cent. The hit to 20-30 year-old employees was also severe: a 9 per cent loss of jobs and wages paid.

Cafes, restaurants and pubs around the country have either closed or are operating on a much reduced basis thanks to the enforced shutdown of non-essential businesses from March 23. Tourism and travel has also collapsed, all of which drove the 26 per cent drop in jobs in the accommodation and food services sector. There was a 30 per cent drop in wages paid in these industries over the three weeks to April 4, the data showed.

The next most severe hit was the 19 per cent drop in jobs – and 16 per cent fall in wages – in the arts and recreation space, followed by around 8 per cent job losses in the mining, real estate services, professional services and administrative services.

The jobs most shielded from the crisis were in education and training, which was essentially unchanged, and utilities, which shed 1 per cent of roles over the period.

The hit to employment was shared between women and men, although female workers suffered a steeper drop in the number of jobs in the final week to April 4: 5.7 per cent, versus a 5.1 per cent drop for males.