Unemployment Figures: Let's Get Real!

Media Release

12 February 2007

Thursday's announcement of the Australian unemployment rate falling to 4.5% would be great news if it reflected reality and if it was mirrored in the Maitland area.

The problem is actually worse than the unemployment figures suggest.

In the first place, the statistics disguise a huge hidden group of men and women who have dropped out of jobseeking altogether.

Recent research shows that nearly 30 per cent of adult men in Australia are outside the labourforce, neither working nor looking for work.  These disillusioned former jobseekers don't count so even though the unemployment rate has gone down the number of people really out of work may have gone up.  This has been acknowledged by the Australian Bureau of Statistics:

A fall in employment doesn't necessarily lead to an increase in unemployment (or the unemployment rate).  Not all people who leave employment become unemployed - others leave the labour force altogether (for example, people retiring, or stopping work to look after children).  People are considered unemployed only if they didn't have a job at the time of the survey and they were available to work and were actively looking for work.

In the second place, the statistics do not take into account underemployment.  Being employed is defined to include people who are 15 years or over and working at least one hour a week.  One hour!  Is it appropriate to consider those people employed!  How many casual or part-time workers are there who would like to work more hours?  How much are the statistics skewed by women who make up 45% of the workforce but predominate in casual and part-time work?  The number of underpaid and under-employed is growing, as is the number of "working poor" who are struggling to keep up with their mortgages.

Unfortunately the good news of 4.5% unemployment in Australia does not apply to New South Wales, where the rate is 5%, or in the Hunter area where the last reported figures show unemployment levels at 5.8 per cent.  And apart from straight percentages, there are some disturbing statistics about the state of affairs in our own area:

• The Maitland Local Government Area has a much lower secondary school retention rate than the NSW State average, with more than 50% leaving before the age of 16.
• 64% of unemployed people in the Maitland LGA are aged 15-34 years - an alarming trend if we are to support our growing ageing population.

Obviously we need government action to address the disproportionately high rate of unemployment in our area and we also need action to address the level of unemployment and underemployment for younger people.

We also need to find out, both locally and statewide, the extent to which people are underemployed so that we have a realistic picture of the extent to which work is truly available to people who wish to undertake it.  I suspect that the reality is far less rosy than a simple statistic suggests.