By Jennifer Duke and Shane Wright
Australia’s unemployment crisis is recovering with 90,000 people returning to work in November as state border closures were lifted, restrictions on businesses and social gatherings eased and coronavirus cases remained low across the country.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday morning shows the unemployment rate fell to 6.8 per cent in November, from 7 per cent the month before, but remains up 1.7 percentage points compared to the same time in 2019.
The federal government and the Reserve Bank of Australia have both said getting workers back into employment is the main focus for the economic recovery following the first recession for the country in 29 years.
At the height of the first wave of coronavirus outbreaks in July more than one million people were out of work for the first time in the nation’s history. The RBA estimates this could have been compounded by a further 700,000 job losses had the federal government not introduced the $101.3 billion wage subsidy scheme JobKeeper. By October, about 650,000 of the jobs lost during the crisis had been recovered across the country, though this included a higher proportion of part-time roles.
There are fewer Australians in the dole queue than at the height of the virus.Credit: Marta Pascual Juanola
There are now 942,100 people unemployed across the country, 17,300 fewer than in October. There are still 240,700 more people out of work than at the same time last year. The underemployment rate improved by 1 percentage point to 9.4 per cent and 43 million extra hours were worked over the month. There has been an 86 per cent recovery in the number of hours worked since the peak of the crisis in May.
ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said the data showed an improvement in the Victorian market in particular, which went through a strict second lockdown that ended in late-October.
“Employment in Victoria increased by 74,000 people in November, following [October’s] increase of 82,000 people,” Mr Jarvis said.
“The gap between Victoria and the rest of Australia has narrowed considerably since September,” he said.
“Early in the COVID period we saw large flows of people out of the labour force ... While the participation rate has recovered, there are still 138,000 fewer employed people than in March and 226,000 more unemployed people.”
Youth unemployment remained stubbornly high, at 15.6 per cent, despite 21,200 people in the age bracket obtaining employment over the month and the participation rate for this sector now at its highest level since March 2009.
More to come