Page 377 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 22 March 2022
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We have had a run of really encouraging data in the first quarter of this year that reflects back on the final quarter of 2021. The December 2021 quarter national accounts show that, as measured by state final demand, the ACT economy was 5.8 per cent bigger by the end of 2021 than it was before the start of the pandemic in the December quarter of 2019.
That is worth reflecting on. It reflects on the resilience, the robustness, of this economy that it grew by nearly six per cent over two years of a pandemic. What we know is that when restrictions are eased safely and are supported by health advice, households have the confidence to go out and spend.
In the December quarter, after the ACT’s longest and most restrictive lockdown due to the Delta outbreak, household spending increased by 8.4 per cent. The largest increases were in areas such as recreation and culture, with a 22.5 per cent increase, and spending in hotels, cafes and restaurants, up 29.2 per cent.
It is clear, Madam Speaker, that in spending more time in these sorts of venues, Canberrans felt the pressing need for a new outfit; that if you are going out, buying new clothes and shoes is clearly a factor, because clothing and footwear sales increased by 40.4 per cent in that December quarter. So as we transitioned out of our leisure wear, Madam Speaker, into things to wear to hotels, cafes and restaurants and to engage in recreation, that flowed through strongly into the clothing and footwear area of retail activity.
More specifically across retail trade turnover, it increased by 19.2 per cent in the month of November last year, to $616 million in that month, which was the highest monthly outcome ever recorded in the history of the territory by the ABS and higher than our very strong three-year monthly average of $542 million.
Retail trade has clearly improved significantly in the ACT as a result of closed national borders, despite the impact of health restrictions. Looking at January, after the impacts of Omicron in late December, retail trade turnover increased further on these record results by just under half a per cent over the month and 1.7 per cent over the year.
And finally, looking at the labour market, when reviewing all of the labour market indicators together—that is, the single-touch payroll data, job vacancies, our payroll tax collections, population growth and the ABS labour force survey—I believe the foundations are there for ongoing employment growth.
I am somewhat loath to focus solely on the labour force survey, given the volatility around the statistical approach of the ABS for smaller jurisdictions. Let us be frank: according to the ABS we apparently had the highest unemployment rate in the country in December and then the lowest in January, with an unemployment rate of 3.2 per cent. In February the unemployment rate fell even further to three per cent, the lowest rate across all of Australia’s states and territories. So in looking at the labour market, we do look at that wider range of indicators, not just the monthly labour force survey.
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