‘It’s a crisis’: SA unemployment hits 15-year high
UPDATED: Startling new jobs figures show South Australia’s unemployment rate spiralling to 8.2 per cent, its highest level since February 2000.
Premier Jay Weatherill says the figures are “deeply disturbing”.
The seasonally adjusted rate for June jumped 0.6 per cent and follows a significant spike the previous month.
More alarming, though, it comes as the national figure essentially flatlined, climbing only 0.1 per cent to 6.0, despite grim economic forecasts.
SA has the highest unemployment rate by a considerable margin; the next-worst performer is Tasmania at 6.5 per cent, but that improved from 7.0 in May.
Business leaders were quick to express their shock.
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“It’s a crisis,” declared Business SA CEO Nigel McBride.
“This is not just an economic statistic, it has a terrible human cost….as far as I’m concerned, the time for denial, rationalisation, justification and ‘we’re not far off the other states’ is over – we’re clearly out of step with the other states.
“We’re so far removed from the other states in terms of the established trend now that all the calls Business SA has been making for fundamental structural reform that will drive jobs and growth have got to be revisited.”
While he welcomed tax reform measures in last month’s state budget, McBride said “what we need is a new and urgent jobs package”.
“The last thing we want to do is undermine business confidence, but our members are saying there is nothing they can see that would encourage them right now to go out and hire a new apprentice or trainee,” he said.
Weatherill, unusually fronting the media over the monthly jobs figures, described the numbers as “obviously deeply disturbing”, arguing they “reflect something we’ve predicted, which is a very substantial stripping out of old manufacturing”.
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“Holden’s is the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
“The car manufacturing industry and components industry are stripping out week by week.”
He urged the Federal Government to contribute significant funding to his automative transformation plan.
“We put a plan to the Federal Government and they put a derisory amount of money toward that plan,” he said.
Weatherill said the monthly figures, however bad, would not deter the Government from its current policy path, but admitted: “We’re going to have to run just to stay still.”
“This is a topic which consumes all the attention of the SA Government and cabinet,” he said.
“We do need to transform the SA economy (and) we need to work together to do that, but we need to work to a plan.
“I know we can do this.”
Opposition spokesman David Pisoni said the alarming stats were “further evidence … of a dangerous jobs crisis”.
“South Australia needs job creation now, not in a few years like the Weatherill Labor Government is talking about,” he said, backing calls for urgent measures including “reducing business taxes to make SA more competitive and bringing forward infrastructure projects that will create long term jobs”.
Full-time employment in SA fell by 6,800 to 519,200 while part-time employment increased by only 1,100 to 283,100. The labour participation rate remained steady at 62.5 per cent, but is well below the national average of 64.8 per cent. Youth unemployment fell to 21.9 per cent, still significantly above the national average of 19.5.
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