Page 2203 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 2 August 2022
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We are investing in our education system, promoting new opportunities in the knowledge economy, and creating new jobs through diversification and encouraging skilled migration.
We are protecting the natural environment and funding programs that will further reduce our carbon emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels.
We are delivering infrastructure that is built for Canberra.
And we are putting in place the settings to create more jobs in our economy. We are on track to deliver our target of 250,000 jobs across the territory economy by 2025.
Economic overview and strategy
The last two years have not been easy, but the ACT economy has outperformed expectations and demonstrated resilience and flexibility.
The government’s pandemic response has underpinned consumer confidence and contributed to the territory’s “V-shaped” economic recovery.
Labour market
Part of the reason why our economy has been so resilient over the last few years is the strength of our labour market. We have the strongest labour market and the lowest unemployment rate in the country.
For almost 12 months now, the number of job vacancies in the ACT has exceeded the number of unemployed people in the territory.
Weekly Australian Bureau of Statistics payroll jobs data from June indicates payroll jobs are nearly seven per cent higher than their level at the start of the pandemic and we have a high workforce participation rate of over 70 per cent.
The sustained performance of our labour market indicates that we are in an environment that is either at or very close to full employment.
This is a good thing, Madam Speaker. This is what governments strive to achieve. We want secure employment for as many Canberrans as possible. But we know that full employment creates short term pressures.
To capitalise on our opportunities for knowledge-based economic growth, we need to ensure our workforce has the right skills for the in-demand jobs in our economy.
We want to remain in a full employment environment; let me be very clear about that. We want to drive real wages growth for workers, particularly after the current global inflationary peak passes.
To ensure a tight labour market is not a constraint on the capacity of the ACT economy to grow, we will invest in increasing participation, increasing productivity
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