Page 102 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 8 February 2022
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data released in January 2022 shows that the difference was 2.9 times higher during the April 2020 lockdown and 2.6 times higher during the August 2021 lockdown.
The key to understanding why it has been even worse for women during the pandemic is not just about retail, hospitality and tourism jobs having their hours cut; it is also about the impact of unpaid work. The labour force participation rate for women in the ACT dropped to 66.4 per cent in August 2021—similar to where it was in April 2020. This has an impact on the unemployment rate, which counts people in the labour force who are looking for work, but it does bounce back when restrictions ease and community transmission rates drop, and people feel safer to go out to restaurants or shops again. In December 2020, it rose to 71.3 per cent from 65.4 per cent in May 2020. I am confident it will rise again, inversely to community transmission rates of COVID-19.
If you are not looking for work because you have to juggle support for children studying at home or very young children who cannot go to early childhood education, support family with health conditions or older family members who are in isolation and provide emotional support for everyone in your household who is working from home or experiencing social isolation or financial stress, opting out of the labour force makes sense. We saw many of those women return to the labour force when restrictions eased at the end of 2021.
It is important that when we talk about economic recovery, we also talk about how we reduce the unpaid work of women in our community, and reduce community transmission of the virus so that people in the community feel safe to go out again. These things support women returning to work. This is why the ACT government is supporting parents to feel safer about children returning to school. It is also why the ACT government is supplying rapid antigen tests to in-home disability support and aged-care workers, reducing the risk that people will cancel their care services and keeping people at risk safe and well. It is why we worked so hard to become the most vaccinated city in the world, reducing transmission and making it easier for more people to go out in the community with confidence.
This ACT government also provides support to people experiencing difficulty, literally putting food on the table during this pandemic through the Canberra Relief Network and supporting local community food relief services. We also invested an additional nine per cent in mental health in the last budget, including support for community mental health supports such as the Perinatal Wellbeing Centre and Parentline, and the launch of MindMap and additional resources for mental health services in the community, because we know that this has been a hard two years for Canberrans, particularly for young people, and for parents who talk to me about how hard it is balancing home schooling and work from home.
It is important to note that the decisions made by the commonwealth government and the New South Wales government have an impact on the ACT economy. JobKeeper and the higher rate of JobSeeker had a very noticeable impact on labour force participation rates for ACT women in 2020 compared to 2021, and on the demand for food relief services. The push to open up fast in New South Wales has driven a shocking rise in COVID cases over this summer, forcing those most at risk from
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