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BRENDAN O’CONNOR MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND INDUSTRY
SHADOW MINISTER FOR SCIENCE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR SMALL AND FAMILY BUSINESS
MEMBER FOR GORTON

Today’s ABS Labour Force figures confirm 30,000 jobs have been lost in the last month while another 18,000 Australians gave up looking for work.
 
The jobs crisis has intensified ahead of another 160,000 Australians expected to join unemployment queues by the end of the year.
 
The Government forecasts higher unemployment for longer with the jobless rate not expected to get back to pre-crisis levels even after four years.
 
The Government’s Budget racked up one trillion dollars of debt but failed to include a comprehensive plan for jobs, and locked in damaging cuts to JobKeeper in the face of rising unemployment.
 
The ABS Labour Force figures for September revealed:

• Over 400,000 jobs have been lost since the crisis, with 200,000 Australians dropping out of the labour force altogether
• 30,000 jobs were lost in September alone, with the unemployment rate rising to 6.9 per cent
• Almost 2.5 million Australians are either looking for work or looking for more work

These figures come hours after RBA Governor Philip Lowe argued that much more needed to be done to tackle the jobs crisis, noting that the RBA wants “to see more than just ‘progress towards full employment’.”
 
Scott Morrison doesn’t have a goal to achieve full employment, let alone a plan to realise it, with the unemployment rate not expected to return to its pre-crisis level within four years.
 
The Government’s unacceptably high 6 per cent target for unemployment will see a generation of Australians sacrificed to this crisis, with higher unemployment for longer and a trillion dollars of debt the only lasting legacies of this crisis.
 
Decisions taken by the Liberals in this Budget mean that the Morrison Recession will be deeper and longer than necessary.
 
THURSDAY, 15 OCTOBER 2020