The key to recovering from the Great Slump is of course employment. If people can't find work they can't pay their mortgage. So it's great news that Australia is creating new jobs at the rate of 1000 a day! Not so heartening is to find that NSW is only creating 200 of them. Indeed the latest employment figures show the performance of NSW is actually going backwards compared to the other states, Victoria approaching 400 new jobs per day, most of them being full time, whereas half of NSW's new jobs are part time. Even worse, the Bureau of Statistics shows that NSW actually lost 2600 jobs last month!
Craig James of Commsec predicts unemployment at 4.75% by end of the year and says "Businesses are now largely coasting, concerned about the implication of stimulus measures being withdrawn." He says that Australia's very high rate of population growth helps business, but adds that because of immigration and aging "employment needs to rise by around 25,000 per month to prevent the jobless rate from rising". One could argue that cutting immigration and helping older people to work longer would reduce the pressure to create new jobs!
Statistics show that youth unemployment is particularly bad, with 16% of 15-19 year olds unemployed. "Prolonged unemployment for young people can have life-long consequences," says Toby Hall, CEO of Mission Australia, advocating urgent steps to help school leavers transition into the workforce.
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