EMPLOYMENT FIGURES

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Employment. Does the minister agree with the Premier that the number of South Australian jobs has grown in the last four months?

The Hon. G. PORTOLESI (Hartley—Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:34): The Premier made the point that there has been jobs growth in our state and that the South Australian economy is in a strong position. What I can say is that since this government came to office in March 2002, we have seen more than 117 jobs created—

The Hon. M.F. O'Brien: Thousand.

The Hon. G. PORTOLESI: —117,000 jobs created.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: That was them!

The Hon. G. PORTOLESI: No, I'll get to them in a second—including nearly 65,000 full-time jobs. Just for information, the last Liberal government created about 5,800 full-time jobs, and that's around as many full-time jobs as we have created each year, on average—that period is March 2002 to September 2013. So, I think we can be very proud of our jobs record and jobs achievement.

We have a very strong agenda here in South Australia. If we want South Australians, especially young South Australians, to be positioned for the future, one of the key things you do is invest in education and skills. I may have the opportunity to talk about this later, but I was very pleased that the South Australian government has reached, ahead of time, our training target. We have invested heavily in education. We have invested heavily in skills for the following reasons:

people with post-school qualifications work around seven years longer;

young people with qualifications have an unemployment rate that is almost three times lower than those without; and

lifetime earnings/income are around $1 million higher with a cert III qualification or higher.

So, certainly, in relation to jobs, we are a government that is unashamedly pro jobs. Like every government, we know that you have to work hard to create jobs, but we have a strong plan to do that.