Thursday 18 December 2014

National unemployment and Tony Abbott


Tony Abbott was Minister for Employment Services/ Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business from 21 October 1998 to 7 October 2003. During that time John Howard was Australian Prime Minister.

In October 1998, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7.7%.
When he left that ministry five years later in Oct 2003 the unemployment rate was 5.6%.

As a federal minister there was no talking down of the Australian economy or the annual government budget during that time. His main political narrative was all about more jobs, higher pay and greater wealth for the people of Australia.

Tony Abbott has been Australian Prime Minister from 18 September 2013 to date. During the same period Eric Abetz has been Employment Minister.

In September 2013 the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.6%.
By Sept 2014 the unemployment rate had risen to 6.1%
In October it had climbed to 6.2% and now the latest figures for Nov 2014 show the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 6.3%.

In the Abbott Government's first Mid-Year Economic Outlook 2013-14 (December 2013) it was clearly stated:

 The unemployment rate is expected to drift up to 6¼ per cent by the June quarter of 2015. 

By the Mid-Year Econonomic Outlook (December 2014) that expectation had been revised up to 6.5% for 2015, remaining that high until at least June 2016. 

This new unemployment rate prediction represents over 803,952 people without a job.

I fear that Prime Minister Abbott’s penchant for bellowing budget crisis, debt & deficit! at every opportunity, the unfair May 2014 budget his government constructed and these high unemployment figures since he came to office are inter-related.

* With the exception of the MYEFO figures, all data is from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) series Labour Force, Australia.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

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Up here in Queensland the newman LNP promise was to get unemployment down to 4%.

Queensland currently has the highest unemployment on the mainland.

newman;s gang is now saying that the 4% unemployment figure was "stretch target".

No one in Queensland knows what that means ..... and its being reported that Target has had hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders lining up to to catch a glimpse of a "stretch target".

Word is that it can be found in the remnants bin alongside the "lower cost of living" newman promise.