UNEMPLOYMENT – AUSTRALIA

Less gloomy Treasury flags faster recovery

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Original article by Matthew Cranston
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 10-Jun-20

Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy has told a Senate inquiry that Australia’s unemployment rate is now likely to peak at around eight per cent as the economy begins to re-open and coronavirus lockdown restrictions are eased. The Treasury had previously forecast that the impact of the pandemic would cause the jobless rate to reach 10 per cent by June. Australia’s official unemployment rate is currently 6.2 per cent. Kennedy also said the impact of the pandemic on GDP growth will also not be as severe as initially forecast.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY

2.09 million Australians unemployed in May, down 69,000 on April

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 5-Jun-20

In May 14.8% of the workforce (2.09 million Australians) were unemployed and 9.7% (1.37 million) were under-employed. This is a total of 3.46 million (24.5%) unemployed or under-employed as Australia begins to open up, according to the latest Roy Morgan employment estimates – obviously an under-estimation as 3.5 million are currently subsidised on JobKeeper. Michele Levine, CEO Roy Morgan, says: "Australia has entered its first recession for three decades and a quarter of the Australian workforce is unemployed or under-employed. To emerge from recession quickly businesses and unions must work together to forge sensible and equitable solutions that encourage employers to hire new workers. A Roy Morgan survey this week showed the Federal Court decision to award extra entitlements to certain casual employees will effect up to 794,000 Australian businesses. 567,000 businesses say they will be deterred from hiring casual employees and 123,000 say the decision will ‘force them to close’. This shows if businesses and unions don’t work together hundreds of thousands of Australians will struggle to find new jobs."

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ROY MORGAN LIMITED

ABS April Unemployment estimate doesn’t reflect reality. ABS claims 594,000 lose their jobs but only 104,000 become unemployed (?!?)

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Original article by Gary Morgan, Michele Levine, Julian McCrann
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 15-May-20

Yesterday the ABS released its April employment estimates. The ABS estimates that 12,419,000 Australians were employed in April, down 594,000 on March. There were sharp falls for both full-time and part-time employed. The ABS estimate Australian unemployment increased by only 104,000 to 823,000 in April (6.2% of the workforce, up 1%). Australians will be asking, how can the ABS say 594,000 have lost their jobs in April but only 104,000 become unemployed? This is because the ABS claim 490,000 people left the workforce in April. i.e. the ABS claims these people lost their jobs and weren’t then looking for work and available to start work during the reference week. These workers are unemployed – NOT out of the workforce. So the workforce size in April should match the March estimate of 66%. The real ABS unemployment estimate for April is closer to 1.35 million (9.8%) – an increase of 4.6% points. Combined with the estimated ABS under-employment of 1.82 million (13.7%) means a combined unemployment and under-employment of 3.16 million (23.5%). This is much closer to the Roy Morgan April employment estimates showing 2.16 million Australians (15.3%) were unemployed and a total of 3.48 million (24.7%) were either unemployed or under-employed.

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED, AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS

‘Massive hit’: unemployment jump set to break ABS records

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Original article by Matthew Cranston
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 14-May-20

Shane Oliver of AMP Capital expects labour market data to be released on 14 May will show that a record 750,000 jobs were lost in April. AMP Capital forecasts that the unemployment rate rose to 10 per cent in April, while less bearish economists anticipate a jobless rate of between eight and nine per cent. Justin Smirk of Westpac notes that the actual jobless rate is likely to be much higher, as the Australian Bureau of statistics does not consider somebody to be unemployment if they have been laid off but have a job to go back to. Meanwhile, data from the ABS shows that annual growth in wages was just 2.1 per cent in the March quarter.

CORPORATES
AMP CAPITAL INVESTORS LIMITED, WESTPAC BANKING CORPORATION – ASX WBC, AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS

Door not shut on extending jobless aid: PM

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Original article by Geoff Chambers, Patrick Commins
The Australian – Page: 2 : 12-May-20

JP Morgan expects about one million Australians to have lost their jobs in April, lifting the unemployment rate to 8.5 per cent. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reiterated that at present the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme is still slated to be in place for six months. He adds that it could be extended or scaled back, depending on the pace at which the economy and the labour market recover from the pandemic. Official labour market data for April will be released on 14 May.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET

Roy Morgan’s unemployment measure for April shows 2.16 million Australians were unemployed (15.3% of the workforce) with an additional 1.32 million (9.4%) under-employed

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 4-May-20

Roy Morgan’s unemployment measure for April shows that in total a massive 3.5 million (24.7%) Australians are now either unemployed or under-employed. This is 439,000 fewer than the 3.92 million (27.4%) during the last two weeks of March (March 20-31, 2020), immediately before the Federal Government’s JobKeeper program was announced. Roy Morgan’s unemployment figure of 15.3% for April is now almost three times higher than the current ABS estimate for March 2020 of 5.2%. The ABS figure for March was based on interviews conducted in reference to early March (pre shut-downs) and did not include data related to the situation in late March (post shut-downs).

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED

Good news and bad debt

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Original article by Terry McCrann
Sunday Herald Sun – Page: 63 : 3-May-20

The advice from Australian Banking Association CEO Anna Bligh that "so far" more than 320,000 home loan borrowers and 170,000 businesses have had loan repayments deferred is a mix of ‘good’ news and ‘bad’ news. Clearly the numbers who need repayments deferred "will increase". Some "good news" for the government is Roy Morgan’s April estimate of Australia’s unemployed and under-employed, down 439,000 on the last 2 weeks in March – however, it only dropped because of the government’s JobKeeper scheme. If JobKeeper numbers were added to those who are unemployed and under-employed then "real joblessness" is probably around a third of the workforce, with not one person from the public sector ‘out-of-work’. Even with Australian banks proactively playing their part the post-virus reality is not going to be "a walk in the park" – assuming it is allowed!

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN BANKING ASSOCIATION, ROY MORGAN LIMITED

Economic hit outpaces Great Depression

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Original article by Matthew Cranston, Tom McIlroy
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 8 : 29-Apr-20

Treasury officials have told a parliamentary inquiry that Virgin Australia is not the only company that has sought government assistance due to the coronavirus pandemic. Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy has warned that some businesses will not recover from the crisis. He also said the expected rapid rise in Australia’s unemployment rate will be unprecedented. The jobless rate is forecast to reach 10 per cent in June; Kennedy noted that while unemployment rose much higher during the Great Depression, it did so over several years.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY, VIRGIN AUSTRALIA HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX VAH

Jobless blow will be worst since 1930s

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Original article by David Marin-Guzman
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 9 : 20-Apr-20

A report from the Grattan Institute has forecast that jobs in the hospitality, arts and recreation, retail and education sectors will be hardest hit by the coronavirus and the measures that have been deployed to contain it. The public policy think tank estimates that 14-26 per cent of Australian workers will soon be out of work, or up to 3.4 million people. In addition, the Grattan Institute warns that the JobKeeper scheme will not prevent the unemployment rate from rising to 10-15 per cent.

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GRATTAN INSTITUTE

ABS March unemployment figures are misleading – because second half of March ignored!

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Original article by Gary Morgan, Michele Levine, Julian McCrann
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 17-Apr-20

The ABS yesterday, finally, released their March unemployment estimates – actually the first half of March. The ABS March employment estimates show employment increasing by 6,000 and unemployment virtually unchanged at 5.2%, up only 0.1% from February – both very misleading and should never have been released in their current form. On April 8, 2020 Roy Morgan released accurate real employment and unemployment estimates for the whole of March – pre and post COVID-19 lock-down. Roy Morgan’s unemployment estimate pre the COVID-19 lock-down was 7.3%, essentially unchanged on February. However, Roy Morgan’s late March unemployment estimates showed the Government’s COVID-19 lockdown response resulted in an extra 1.4 million Australians becoming unemployed in a matter of two weeks, leading to unemployment of 2.4 million (16.8%) and under-employment increasing 374,000 to 1.52 million (10.6%) in the second half of March. This means a record high 3.92 million (27.4%) of Australians were either unemployed or under-employed and looking for more work in the second half of March – depression numbers! (Following is a link to full details on Roy Morgan’s March employment and under-employment estimates: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8363-roy-morgan-unemployment-and-under-employment-march-2020-202004080900)

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED, AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS