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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-17 Daily Xml
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UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (15:06): My question is to the Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education. What do the latest employment figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics mean for South Australia?

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (15:07): The latest job figures released last Thursday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that a record number of South Australians are in jobs—indeed, 104,500 extra jobs since the government came into office in 2002. In trend terms full-time employment has grown by 14.7 per cent between March 2002 and May 2009—a solid achievement for this government. By comparison, full-time employment grew by a mere 1.2 per cent (or 5,800 jobs) between December 1993 and February 2002 under the previous Liberal government.

In May the total number of people employed in trend terms in South Australia increased by 1,600 to reach a record high of 795,600 individuals, and the headline unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 per cent to reach 5.4 per cent, bucking the national trend which rose by 0.2 per cent to reach 5.7 per cent. We worked against the national trend in terms of unemployment.

South Australia is the only mainland state to record a drop in its headline unemployment rate and the only state to record an increase in the number of people looking for work. Our participation rate in trend terms went up by 0.1 per cent to 63.7 per cent. This is equal to the highest ever recorded in October last year—which, I might add, was prior to the onset of the global economic crisis.

Participation rates are important because they effectively measure the level of confidence about the economy. The higher the participation rate the greater the number of people who feel strongly that they have a chance of securing employment. It is pleasing to note that South Australia's annual average employment growth in trend terms has now exceeded the national rate for the past four months.

As the training and employment minister—and someone who has teenage children—I, like many others, was concerned to see that youth unemployment had risen to 24.9 per cent. However, this needs some clarification. It is a common misconception that an unemployment rate of 24.9 per cent means that approximately one in four young people are unemployed.

The youth unemployment rate is based on a smaller group of working age teenagers who are in the labour force. There are about 107,000 South Australian teenagers of working age, that is, aged 15 to 19, and last month there were 5,300 of these individuals looking for employment, which is an unemployment rate of 5 per cent. While one young person out of work is one person too many, our focus is on keeping teenagers in education and training to give them the best chance of winning a sustainable job. That is why we as a government have joined with the commonwealth government in announcing a youth compact which aims to ensure that all unemployed Australians under the age of 25 will have a guaranteed education or training place.

I reiterate what the Premier said last week: we are not out of the woods yet. There is still a great uncertainty internationally, and tough decisions need to be made at the state level. However, these figures are further evidence that the state economy is continuing to demonstrate resilience in the face of the global economic crisis, particularly since the March quarter for state final demand showed the state growing at a rate of 2 per cent, as opposed to a national fall of 1 per cent. South Australia was the only state or territory to record economic growth in the quarter and has recorded the highest annual growth rates across the nation.

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