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I thought I’d have a look at the number of employed persons in Australia (seasonally adjusted ABS cat. 6202.0) over the past five years.
Update: Don Arthur over at Club Troppo interprets this graph as showing that Kevin Rudd caused the GFC. Don is one of the more smarter social democrats, so it’s unsurprising they can’t handle money or manage an economy.
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It is said we are importing skilled labour, therefore there must be barriers to employment over and above the IR legislation.
Is there any indication what the “Full” employment # would be across that time?
Token
4 Aug 11 at 11:59 am
Hmm, one might get the impression it doesn’t matter who is in government, employment rises regardless. Any breakdown on public and private employment?
ar
4 Aug 11 at 12:03 pm
The rise in the population of Canberra is the scary graph.
Infidel Tiger
4 Aug 11 at 12:14 pm
What happened in Sept 09?
Ooh Honey Honey
4 Aug 11 at 12:50 pm
I think that was the point that people finally syareted to realise that the GFC wasn’t going to mean the end of the world as we know it.
papachango
4 Aug 11 at 1:08 pm
I think that was the point that people finally syareted to realise that the GFC wasn’t going to mean the end of the world as we know it.
papachango
4 Aug 11 at 1:08 pm
“What happened in Sept 09?”
Part of the explanation is the start of the BER. In the June quarter 2009 the value of building commencements in the education sector was $1.03bn. The average over the previous year was around $1bn a quarter. In previous years it was around $0.8bn per quarter.
But then it spiked to a massive $5.3bn in the September quarter 2009, and remained relatively high through to the end of 2010:
Dec 09: $3.6bn
Mar 10: $3.7bn
Jun 10: $2.9bn
Sep 10: $2.4bn
Dec 10: $1.9bn
Mar 11: $1.1bn
Source: 8752.0 – Building Activity, Australia, Mar 2011, Table 60, Column AX.
Capitalist Piggy
4 Aug 11 at 1:29 pm
Pretty good effort to only be flat while the GFC smashed into us.
m0nty
4 Aug 11 at 1:40 pm
Not really – the government claims to have created jobs during the GFC.
Sinclair Davidson
4 Aug 11 at 1:46 pm
It cost up to $400,000 per job created or saved (they could never make their mind up on that) too.
No, Keynesianism is a bust.
Fisky
4 Aug 11 at 1:57 pm
The GFC didn’t smash into us.
daddy dave
4 Aug 11 at 2:08 pm
An interesting way of looking at this this is to compare the change in employed persons with the change in average hours. What seems to be very clear in 2008-09 when WorkChoices was still operational is that adjustment to the downturn occurred through hours rather than heads, a much better outcome on equity and probably efficiency grounds, compared with previous downturns.
Note also that the full impact of the Fair Work Act is now only being felt as old agreements expire. There is no way we are going to get to Swan’s 500,000 jobs in the next two years given the way we are going.
Judith Sloan
4 Aug 11 at 2:19 pm
The GFC was the USA/EU FC, was based on both areas overexposure to bad debt, and was never going to touch us. Just like the Asian FC didn’t.
wreckage
4 Aug 11 at 2:36 pm
‘The GFC was the USA/EU FC, was based on both areas overexposure to bad debt, and was never going to touch us. Just like the Asian FC didn’t.’
Quite right. What hurt Australia th emost – the North Alantic FC or the government’s response to it?
I know my answer.
johno
4 Aug 11 at 3:06 pm
“the whole crisis actually was very much a North Atlantic crisis. It was really only a global crisis for six or eight weeks, I think. The rest of it is mainly a North Atlantic story.”
- Glenn Stevens
Capitalist Piggy
4 Aug 11 at 3:15 pm
I wouldnt be so quick to dismiss the uncertainty around the GFC. If China had pulled back we would have a one speed economy now, stalled.
As it turned out we were largely insulated due to minerals demand, and sound banking practices in Australia.
Doesnt excuse the waste on the stimulus though. Didnt it work out something like “no income taxes for a year” for everyone in Australia as the cost?
Wouldnt that be a stimulus worth having?
thefrollickingmole
4 Aug 11 at 3:20 pm
Monty – <blockquotePretty good effort to only be flat while the GFC smashed into us.
Yes a great effort; but in reality we were never really touched by the GFC; but GFC2 is a different kettle of fish!
neil
4 Aug 11 at 3:38 pm
No. It’s just about to
Ooh Honey Honey
4 Aug 11 at 3:52 pm
For a “FC that didn’t smash into us” we did in essence lose a regional bank, had another which looked pretty sick, and had umpteen billion of govt guarantees applied to our banks’ funding. We had numbers of interestingly timed share placement plans in the finance sector, and very attractive DRP discounts. The property sector was kept alive with dilutive rights issues. We had one lender mortgage provider bought out, and another’s reinsurance arrangements look very substantially different to 3 years ago. We had insanely expansive monetary and fiscal policy.
PSC
4 Aug 11 at 11:32 pm
I agree with you PSC for all those things, although you’ve mentioned more than I have in the past. I can’t believe people think we skirted the crisis, especially the banks when they were kept alive with guarantees and then nearly all had to dilute because of some decent writedowns.
JC
4 Aug 11 at 11:39 pm
I was once at a presentation – years ago – talking about the Keating track record. The presenter put up a slide and proceeded to describe the economy falling over under Keating.
Then he put up a slide and showed the economy the world falling over at the same time.
The tongue in cheek comment – “Keating was such a shocking treasurer/PM – not only did he wipe out Australia, he managed to take out the rest of the world too”
PSC
4 Aug 11 at 11:51 pm
[...] there no limits to Kevin’s power? At Catallaxy Files Sinclair Davidson posts a graph showing how Labor’s abolition of Work Choices caused the global financial crisis … or [...]
Club Troppo » Missing Link Friday – unions, wheelchairs, virtual horses etc
5 Aug 11 at 9:00 am
Those vertical red yellow and black lines ob the graph are astonishingly arbitrary.
Alphonse
5 Aug 11 at 10:50 am
Uh, no. They mark policy changes that influence the labor market.
And by a freaky coincidence, the chart changes direction every time it hits one of those lines (except for the last election).
daddy dave
5 Aug 11 at 11:01 am
What was employment doing before the graph started?
Sancho
5 Aug 11 at 9:17 pm