Jobs There, But The Figures Look Awful
The Age
Friday November 9, 2001
The last big statistics before polling day look awful: unemployment up to 7.1 per cent, full-time jobs down by 57,000. But from month to month, the seasonally adjusted jobs figures are pitching and rolling like the refugee boat in the navy's video.
To know what is really going on in the jobs market, don't look too hard at those month-to-month movements; they just leave you seasick. Focus instead on the trend figures, and a less alarming picture emerges.
In trend terms, unemployment is not rising but flat; it has been stuck at 6.9 per cent since July. Employment hit bottom in July and has been creeping up since, with the equivalent of 11,000 full-time jobs added in the past three months.
That trend is unlikely to last; even Peter Costello is warning us that unemployment will get worse. The impact of the global slump will corrode our earnings from exports and tourism, while the full impact of the Ansett collapse will take months to be felt.
The forecasters predict that unemployment is likely to get close to 8 per cent over the next year, and might not fall significantly until 2003. Job vacancies and job ads are both shrinking. Those without work are facing a tough year or two but the worst has not hit yet.
The Bureau of Statistics estimates that on the trend measure - its preferred measure - the total number of jobs has kept rising to a record 9,182,000 in October, 55,000 more than a year ago. That growth has been concentrated in Queensland and Victoria, both of which are also at record levels.
But within that total, we have fewer full-time jobs and more part-time jobs. Since the Sydney Olympics ended, we have lost 89,000 full-time jobs and added 140,000 part-time ones.
The total number of jobs has risen. But the total amount of work has shrunk.
On a rough rule of thumb that two part-time jobs equal one full-time job, Australia lost the equivalent of 30,000 full-time jobs between September 2000 and July 2001, then put 11,000 of them back between July and October.
So far in 2001 Victoria has lost 20,000 full-time jobs, the bureau estimates, and gained 31,000 part-time ones. Since July the trend has been rising, but it seems unlikely to last.
© 2001 The Age