Question Time

Unemployment Figures

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question about the ABS employment statistics released today.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: It is refreshing to see a minister in this place responding with lots of good answers early in his career. We have just seen that. However, that is not my explanation.

I welcome the fact that South Australia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has fallen by 0.4 of 1 per cent last month, although I do note that the trend rate remained steady and South Australia's unemployment rate is still the highest in the nation, at 7.2 per cent. However, if we look at the raw numbers we see that the number of hours worked by South Australians actually decreased by 2.2 per cent over the past 12 months (seasonally adjusted). So the total number of hours worked in the past 12 months, compared with the corresponding 12-month period, has fallen by some 29 million hours.

If you think about that, Mr President, even at an average of $20 per hour that is some $540 million less in our economy, over half a billion dollars. My question to the minister is: does the minister acknowledge (notwithstanding the explanations he will use) that the total number of hours worked by South Australians in the past 12 months has actually decreased by some 27 million hours?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The minister has the floor.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:25): I thank the honourable member for his question and his interest in ABS statistics. As the honourable member has outlined, the statistics from the ABS on employment data were released today. In terms of the seasonally adjusted figures, he is right: it has dropped by 0.4 per cent. I think the month before it rose by just under a whole per cent, and that highlights the volatile nature for smaller states of the headline figures. They go up and down from month to month quite a lot.

In terms of trend statistics, I think the honourable member outlined that it has remained steady at 7.2 per cent. I will need to check, but I think that the trend figure has either remained steady or decreased month on month all this financial year. I also note that the statistics are that there are, I think, approximately 8,000 more jobs, as measured by the ABS, from the March month survey over the 12 months prior to that.

Regarding total number of hours worked, I will double-check this. I don't have every figure with me, but I think that is a trend that is replicated around the country, certainly for the last month in total number of hours worked. We are seeing a different nature of how people work, and the casualisation of the workforce has been a trend for many years. I will double-check those figures, but there are 8,000 more jobs. How that is made up in terms of full-time and part-time employment is changing right around the country, so I will double-check those figures in terms of South Australia and nationally and bring back an answer with the exact figures for the honourable member.