Indications that the participation rate is falling and so the level of unemployment is seriously under-estimated. Of course even without that correction the official figures over-estimate the level of employment, given the very small amount of working time required to count as “employed”.
Normally, the potential workforce in Australia (civilians 15 years and over) grows by about 240,000 people a year. At a 66 per cent participation rate, about 160,000 join the labour force and 80,000 are classified as “not in the labour force” (including retirees, students, home carers).
Of the 160,000 in the workforce, about 5 per cent, or 8000, are unemployed. This unemployment rate measure is usually a fairly sensitive indicator of when and where workers are moving from the ranks of the employed into those of the unemployed or in the opposite direction.
But this is the normal picture and the current statistics are anything but normal. In the 12 months to August 2012, only 47,200 joined the labour force and a massive 190,600 people were added to those not in the labour force. These 47,200 new workers were joined in employment by 10,000 persons who had been unemployed 12 months earlier, implying an extra 57,200 jobs were created during the year to August.
So, labour force growth was about 110,000 less than we would expect, and these potential workers went into the group regarded as not in the labour force, as hidden unemployed or discouraged workers, instead of joining the labour force, either as employed or unemployed. If they had been chasing a job and joined the labour force as unemployed persons, then our unemployment rate would have been about 6.2 per cent instead of 5 per cent in August.
Don’t miss Judith in The Weekend Australian.
Plus Kelty on super and Paul Kelly doing a bit better on the truth about the ALP.
I’m glad Kelty is talking about super.
If Labor plays with Super the wrong way, they will have killed the goose that lays the gold eggs.
This is the same week we hear from the Treasury older people are hiding cash – as they don’t trust the government. More will come to that view.
Token
29 Sep 12 at 7:02 pm
Have a little faith please.
Sid Vicious
29 Sep 12 at 7:24 pm
Thanks Sid, that makes me feel better. Likewise the target of 60% of people going to uni, recognizing that education has always been the path to a better life as well!
Poor Old Rafe
29 Sep 12 at 7:31 pm
Sid,
The whole training and education system is just a racket.
We’d be better off if we just gave out more dole money.
$800 for a “chem cert”. Fuck me.
.
29 Sep 12 at 7:35 pm
Oh, dear! Sorry we destroyed your manufacturing industries that used to employ skilled trades and unskilled process workers. Let’s see. What can we do with all these people. Infrastructure projects would soak up a lot of them, but we’re so in debt we have to go slowly on that front.
Aha! We’ll pretend that going to uni is the answer. It’ll play right into the class war scenario (formerly just rich kids went to uni) while we work on making them believe that there’s hope for proper employment for an unlimited number of graduates from the Faculty Of Inconsequential Studies.
Later, when we have too many graduates, we’ll make it necessary to have a degree in order to become a barista.
Blogstrop
30 Sep 12 at 6:49 am
It seems that the left, through unions and their government extension, are creating the same embedded disadvantage in the wider community that Rafe links to in the subsequent thread on Gough’s grandchildren.
Biota
30 Sep 12 at 9:44 am
HSU hunts Craig Thomson
SAMANTHA MAIDEN
The Sunday Telegraph
September 30, 2012 12:00AM
CRAIG Thomson faces a fresh legal nightmare with the Health Services Union warning it is “coming after him” to repay union cash.
…
(Ah, the old, “First and Last Line, Rule”…)
Mr Brown said: “He hasn’t been cleared by the AEC, he’s not off the hook with FWA. All that stuff is the usual spin.”
true lilly
30 Sep 12 at 2:52 pm