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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-09-23 Daily Xml
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Effective Unemployment Rate

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Treasurer regarding effective unemployment rates.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: The federal Treasurer often refers to the effective unemployment rate as a better measure of unemployment, so my question to the Treasurer is: what do the most recent effective unemployment rate figures for South Australia suggest?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:21): The federal Treasurer does indeed refer to the effective unemployment rate, which is a combination of the number of unemployed people, people who have left the labour force since March 2020 and employed people who worked zero hours in the reference period for economic reasons, and I am advised that that refers to people who have been stood down; that is, they are actually employed but nevertheless they have worked zero hours during a period because they have been stood down by their employer.

The federal Treasurer says the effective unemployment rate, which actually doesn't just count the people who are measured as unemployed but includes these people who have been stood down and people who have left the workforce since the onset of the pandemic, if you add those to them that's a better measure of the real unemployment rate or the effective unemployment rate.

It has been an interesting yet unreported phenomenon that when measuring the effective unemployment rate in South Australia, as recommended by federal Treasury and the federal Treasurer, it is lower than the national effective unemployment rate. For the month of August 2020, the effective unemployment rate in South Australia was 8.6 per cent and the effective unemployment rate in Australia was 9.3 per cent. In fact, not unexpectedly, the effective unemployment rate in Victoria, for obvious reasons, is the highest at 11.3 per cent.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order, on both sides!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: And in Queensland the effective unemployment rate is 10.5 per cent.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order, the Hon. Mr Hunter!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: So the effective unemployment rates in Victoria and Queensland at 11.3 per cent and 10.5 per cent are the highest state jurisdictions. The national figure of 9.3 per cent is, again, higher than the effective unemployment rate in South Australia. As I indicated yesterday, the Single Touch Payroll figures showed encouraging and optimistic signs in terms of both jobs growth and salaries growth in South Australia as measures of the easing of restrictions—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —and the success of the Marshall Liberal government—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —in relation to providing stimulus into the South Australian—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! I can't hear the Treasurer, and I would like to.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —economy in terms of protecting jobs and protecting as many businesses as we can, which is of course what the Marshall Liberal government pledged to do, and in the coming weeks and months leading up to the budget there will be more of the same.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Hunter!

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