Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. I can confirm that that's the number of placements that have been made under the program. But it's also worth noting that it's better than it would have been under the circumstance that the Labor Party voted for in this chamber, which was not to have the program at all. So over 8,000 people do have the opportunity to start a job, based on this program.

We've also a number of other programs that we've put in place. I know a very popular program, in Tasmania, which is to provide a subsidy for the first and second year of apprentices. There's been a huge uptake—in fact, a very, very fast uptake in Tasmania. So we're continuing to work to grow the number of people in employment. In fact, the number of people in youth employment has increased by 23,200 or 1.2 per cent to a record high of 1.963 million, over the year, to August 2019.

As I said before, we continue to grow youth employment. Full-time youth employment has risen by 17,900, a 2.1 per cent increase, and youth part-time employment has increased by 5,400 or 0.5 per cent. It's worth noting that even though the unemployment rate is at 11.7 per cent right now, it is one per cent lower than it was when Labor left government.

We continue to work to get people into jobs. We continue to work to get all Australians into jobs. That's why we implement programs that support youth into employment, even though the Labor Party might oppose them. They give young people the opportunity to get a start—things that the Labor Party oppose.