300,000 lost jobs ... and counting
Scott Morrison has called on the states and territories to reopen schools and support getting a million Australians back to work.
Scott Morrison has called on the states and territories to reopen schools and support getting a million Australians back to work, as new Treasury analysis reveals classroom closures have contributed to more than 300,000 job losses and a 3 per cent hit to economic activity.
Ahead of a crucial national cabinet meeting on Friday to relax crippling social restrictions, the Prime Minister warned that the COVID-19 economic cost would continue as long as Australians were unable to open their businesses, go back to offices and send children back to school.
Mr Morrison singled out Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews for his decision not to return children to the classroom, arguing he was making “different decisions” to the leaders of other states and territories, which were embracing a staged reopening of schools.
With governments, unions and employers finalising national COVID-19-safe workplace protocols, Treasury figures showed school closures, social restrictions and travel bans were responsible for half the forecast 11 per cent hit to economic activity in the first six months of the year.
The Treasury data — presented to state and territory leaders at Tuesday’s national cabinet meeting — predicted that 708,000 jobs would be lost through social and travel restrictions by mid-year.
Placing the onus on the states and territories to decide which sectors would be unlocked and when students returned to school, Mr Morrison said a three-step national framework to remove baseline restrictions would be released by the end of the week.
“The national cabinet and certainly the commonwealth government is under no illusion about the ongoing costs of these measures, and it certainly puts enormous pressure, as it should, on the timetable as we seek to move Australia back to a COVID-safe economy because of those significant costs,’’ Mr Morrison said.
“And as we plan our way back and getting those million Australians back to work.’’
Following Education Minister Dan Tehan’s criticism of Mr Andrews on Sunday, Mr Morrison described decisions made by other state leaders on schools as “good calls”.
“The Premier in Victoria will continue to make the decisions as he sees them in relation to state schools, and that’s entirely within his bailiwick,” he said.
“Other premiers are making different decisions, like in Queensland, NSW, South Australia, the Northern Territory and in Western Australia.
“The expert economic advice that we’ve received from the Treasury is that not opening schools fully is costing jobs and it does cost the economy. They’re the facts.
“And those facts have led the commonwealth government to have a very consistent position on that and to welcome every day where there is a school with a classroom that is open with more and more students attending and getting their learning face-to-face in the classroom.”
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday showed that over the five weeks to April 18, almost one million jobs had been lost during the pandemic.
The new Treasury data revealed more than half of the drop in economic activity had occurred in the accommodation and food services, transport, postal and warehousing, professional, scientific and technical services, construction, and retail and wholesale trade sectors. Just over one million jobs have been directly affected across those industries.
Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra, Josh Frydenberg said the way to get people off unemployment benefits was to “get them back into the workforce, to encourage economic activity, and that’s why the lifting of the restrictions is so important”.
Despite six of the eight states and territories recording multiple zero-case days, it remained unlikely that a uniform approach would be adopted across all jurisdictions in removing restrictions.
Federal, state and territory leaders committed on Tuesday to having a “sustainable COVID-19-safe economy by July”, subject to testing, tracing and local surge health response capacity.
Providing an update on the COVIDSafe app, considered a trigger for unlocking restrictions, Mr Morrison said the national take-up was on track to crash through five million on Tuesday, almost hitting a third of the targeted population of 16 million.
He said while getting workplaces back online was a priority, putting safety protocols in place was critical.
“When we move and start to ease some of these restrictions, of course you will see numbers increase in some areas, you will see outbreaks occur in other places, that is to be expected. What matters is how you deal with it … how you respond to it.”
As of Tuesday, more than one million Australians have had their JobSeeker claims processed, 4.7 million people were on JobKeeper payments, more than one million were accessing their superannuation, worth almost $10bn, and 384,000 businesses were accessing about $7bn in cashflow assistance.
With employers, government officials and unions combining to establish COVID-safe workplace plans, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said hot desking would not be feasible and suggested staggered start times would be key.
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