Employment Figures

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (14:57): Can the Treasurer please update the house on the state of the South Australian employment market?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (14:57): Fortunately I can, Mr Speaker, and I am very pleased to do so because the South Australian labour market has continued to demonstrate just how strongly job opportunities and employment outcomes are continuing to grow in the South Australian economy. It was only a few days ago that the ABS released its latest monthly labour force statistics for the month of July, and it shows a new record high for the number of people employed in South Australia: just a smidge under 980,000 South Australians are now working.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: It's an economic term, smidge. That is a further increase of 2,700 on the previous month, which is a really pleasing increase. That means there are now over 79,000 more South Australians in work than there were in March 2022, which is an extraordinary amount of additional jobs that have been created in our economy.

Although we are seeing the national unemployment rate continue to trend up, and South Australia's has increased from the record lows that we have achieved over the past two years, where regularly we would see an unemployment rate of something starting with a three, it is pleasing that our unemployment rate slightly changed. It fell by 0.1 per cent to 4.3 per cent, and while that is significantly lower again from what it was in March 2022, what we have also seen is an increase in the participation rate. To achieve a drop in the unemployment rate at the same time that the participation rate has increased again shows just how strong the labour market is in South Australia. The participation rate is now at 64.3 per cent or 1.1 percentage point higher than what it was back in March 2022.

Despite having so many additional jobs being added to the state's economy, despite the increase in the participation rate and the fall in the unemployment rate, South Australia continues to record the highest number proportionally of job vacancies in the nation. There are still more than 20,000 job vacancies being reported in the South Australian economy, which is absolutely remarkable. South Australia has recorded the best performance in terms of job vacancies over the last 12 months compared with anywhere else in the nation.

That is great news for those South Australians who are either looking to get into the labour market or maybe even looking to change what they do for a living. There is so much economic opportunity still in the state's economy. We see that particularly private sector job vacancies have increased by more than 5 per cent over that year as well. It is the reason why economic commentators such as the Commonwealth Bank through their CommSec State of the States report continue to commend the performance of the South Australian economy. As the Premier mentioned in question time yesterday, we are the second best performing jurisdiction in the nation, which is basically the best performing when you consider that the other state, Western Australia, is benefiting from the remainder of the country's justifiable taxation revenues.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: It was welcomed by Rob Lucas and Steven Marshall. They thought it was a great deal.

The SPEAKER: The Premier and the Leader of the Opposition will both come to order or they can go to the tearoom and have a conversation. I would like to hear the Treasurer.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: This is further great news for our state's economy.