Posted: January 31, 2005

Hunter unemployment - some record

In my last blog, I railed against a claim by Commsec economist Craig James that the latest ABS unemployment data for NSW was getting "...extremely close to levels that could be described as full employment". Today I want to rail against a claim made by another commentator - the Federal Minister for Workplace Participation, Peter Dutton. It is late so I'll be brief.

On January 27, the Newcastle Herald published an opinion piece by the Minister in which he claims that the Howard Government has delivered "record low unemployment" and attributes much of this success (?) to the performance of the Job Network. In my previous piece I set out how the official unemployment rate is just the tip of the iceberg and that more sophisticated data on labour underutilisation - and the rapid growth of the Disability Support Pension - means that we cannot talk about 'full employment' at either a regional or national level.

What particularly riled me about the Dutton article is that he didn't mention a single thing about unemployment in Newcastle and the Hunter in the space he was granted in the area's major newspaper. A Minister and his Department have a truckload of press secretaries and media staff with the time and resources to add a 'local' dimension to a standard press release. Perhaps the Minister does not think enough of local readers to afford them this courtesy or perhaps he had a look at the regional unemployment data and realised his 'record low unemployment' story wouldn't wash? Here's why...

The trend unemployment rate in the Hunter Region (where CofFEE is based) is well above the national average and is rising. In December 2004, unemployment in the Hunter Statistical Region and in Newcastle rose to 6.8 per cent compared to a national unemployment rate of 5.0 per cent. Putting a break on the rise in unemployment was falling labour force participation. For local young people the unemployment story is particularly grim. In December 2004, the youth unemployment rate was 21.8 per cent in Newcastle and 19.3 per cent in the Hunter Region. This suggests that the lauded Job Network isn't "working wonders" for young people in our area. Meanwhile, the average durations of unemployment for Newcastle and the Hunter are 46 weeks and 49 weeks, respectively. For the long-term unemployed (those continuously unemployed for 12 months or more) the durations rise to 135 and 151 weeks.

The Minister's article did not provide regional data on Job Network placements, how long any placements last, and how many go to the young and long-term unemployed. I am sure Newcastle Herald readers would have liked the local context. The average long-term unemployed person in the Hunter Region has now been out of work for three years and seems not to have benefitted from the "record low unemployment" of which the Minister speaks. If the Minister wants to deliver full employment then he should consult CofFEE's Job Guarantee proposal. If he wants to stick to the policy status quo then he should at least use media space in regions of high unemployment to explain why he is giving up on them.

Blog entry posted by bill