Page 2197 - Week 08 - Thursday, 10 September 1992
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The Fightback proposals would hit private enterprise in Canberra as much as the public sector, reducing confidence and making many fewer employment opportunities. I present the following paper:
Labour force and the economy - Ministerial statement, 10 September 1992.
I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR DE DOMENICO (3.09): Madam Speaker, let me first of all say that the Liberal Party welcomes any decrease in unemployment as a relief to the desperate people out there in the community looking for work. Having said that, I also agree with the Chief Minister that, whilst the figures today show some slight improvement, we should be looking very carefully at those figures. What the figures say is that unemployment in the ACT is down from 8.4 per cent last month to 7.8 per cent this month. However, if we take it a step further, the youth unemployment figures, albeit not seasonally adjusted, say that youth unemployment is up 1.7 per cent from 27 per cent in July to 28.7 per cent this month.
The number of people looking for work, of course, is reduced; but that is because many have given up, I am suggesting. Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has gone from 11 per cent last month to 10.9 per cent this month. Youth unemployment, 15- to 19-year-olds, is 34 per cent. These are figures that we cannot boast about. If we compare the unemployment figure in the ACT to the one in August last year, which was 5.9 per cent, we cannot say that we have been doing a great job. In one year under the Labor Government, the figure has gone from 5.9 per cent to 7.8 per cent. That, to me, is nothing to crow about.
But let us have a look more deeply at what the unemployment statistics and the ABS tell us. They tell us more than just unemployment statistics. The employment figures will not improve dramatically until the cost of employing people is reduced. There is no doubt about that. National trends - and once again I am quoting ABS statistics - show small employment increases over the last four months, but they also show that these increases have slowed over the last three months. Employment figures are sluggish. They will not show any change until both Federal and local governments do something about the situation. They must take responsibility for a lot of things, but let us look at the labour costs. They are 6.9 per cent higher this year than they were at the same time last year. Let us have a look at the breakdown, too. Once again, these are ABS statistics, not mine. Earnings - wages and salaries - are up 6 per cent to an average of $26,225. Superannuation is up 18.1 per cent to $1,647. Payroll tax is up 11.5 per cent to $1,029. Workers compensation is up 3.8 per cent to an average of $630. Fringe benefits tax is up 17.3 per cent to $203.
Let us have a look at the public sector increases in labour costs as well. In the public sector employers saw average labour costs per employee increase by 6.6 per cent to $34,309 nationally. The ACT Government cannot avoid these issues either, because it has the worst record for allowing public sector employment costs to skyrocket. In fact, their costs are the highest in Australia.
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