Employment Figures

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (15:10): My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer please inform the chamber about any information he has at hand on jobs growth across various sectors in the South Australian economy?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:10): I thank the honourable member for the question. Certainly, recent information provided by, again, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, provides some useful and informative information in relation to differential impacts across industry sectors in South Australia over the last 12 months or so, post the initial onset of the COVID pandemic.

What those figures show, for example, in the latest week of the Single Touch Payroll figures, which were ending 8 May for these figures, is that there has been significant growth, when compared to March last year—so essentially a 13 or 14-month period—in industry sectors such as education and training (up 12 per cent) and financial and insurance services (up 9 per cent). At the other end, the biggest declines were in accommodation and food services (down 7 per cent) and information, media and telecommunications (down 6.2 per cent).

Interestingly, a chart headed 'Imputed change in SA employment by industry', from March through to May, in terms of total numbers within those industry sectors, shows that industry sectors that have gained employment in that particular period significantly in the first instance include health care and social assistance, not unsurprisingly; education and training; the construction sector, the third biggest in terms of imputed gains in employment; professional, science and technical services; financial and insurance services; and administrative and support services.

At the other end, in terms of the biggest losses in that chart, are, again, accommodation and food services; transport, postal and warehousing; agriculture, forestry and fishing; and then smaller reductions in manufacturing, retail trade, wholesale trade, and information, media and communications.

There is a final bit of information which adds to the challenges that we as a state and we as a nation are confronting in relation to the specific circumstances of international travel bans. In that area of professional services—which is probably included in the financial and insurance services or professional, science and technical services area—one of the representatives of one of the leading professional services firms in South Australia, speaking nationally, indicated that they could employ up to 70 what he referred to as highly qualified middle management auditors within their professional services firms at the moment, because they have a supply of young auditors coming through their firms.

At the top end, they lose auditors as they move on to other businesses or their own business, and they have this need, as I said, at the moment for up to 70 well-qualified middle level management auditors within that professional services firm. He says that in the past they have always had this problem, but they have been able to fill the void by employing, in particular, trained people from the United Kingdom and from other parts of the world who are attracted to Australia.

They certainly believe that when international travel opens up we will see a significant number of trained people, not just expats but certainly including expats, from the UK and the United States in particular, who will want to come to South Australia and to Australia because of the safety record that our nation, and in particular our state, has in terms of managing COVID and various other challenges like that.

The issue of international travel we know is important in relation to a number of industry sectors but is also important in terms of some of these highly skilled sectors where there is clearly a reservoir of people wanting to come to Australia and in particular to South Australia because of the job opportunities and also because of their view of the livability of South Australia, particularly given our performance in relation to managing COVID.