Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers given by Senator Ruston this afternoon. Senator Ruston papers over the incredibly difficult situation that jobseekers in Australia find themselves in with now yet another cut to the coronavirus supplement. It's been reduced, again—from $500 to $250 to now $150 a fortnight, another cut of $100. Yet still this government does not commit to a permanent increase to the JobSeeker payment, which, for a long time, has been seen as manifestly inadequate and way below the poverty line.

The minister also failed in the question to even acknowledge the prediction that there will be 1.8 million people reliant on JobSeeker by Christmas. That figure is currently at about 1.7 million; therefore, we can see that it is set to rise. Perhaps more telling is the minister's failure to acknowledge the absolutely disproportionate ratio of the number of unemployed people and underemployed people in our nation compared to the number of jobs available. The minister simply said, 'Oh well, it's too hard; there are too many different ways of measuring it.'

However you measure it, the outcome is bad. There are about 1.7 million people in Australia seeking more work. There are about 926,000 totally unemployed people. The ratio of unemployed people to vacancies, therefore, looks to be about one vacancy for every eight people. If you look at the feedback from people who are applying for entry level jobs, the ratio is much worse. There was one example of a woman who applied for a job in retail to find that she was competing with 790 other applicants. These are extraordinary statistics, by any measure at all.

If we look to other measures, it's worse for young people. It's much worse for young people. They are subject to much higher levels of unemployment, where you can't get a job as a young person because there are more than eight young people for every vacancy. Let's have a look at where we've come in this regard. In January, Business Insider had the statistics of three unemployed people for every one job. In October, they had it as five unemployed people for every single job. But what Business Insider doesn't do is look at the real unemployment rate. When the government says the unemployment rate is higher or lower, it doesn't count people who are doing some work. So, in those October figures from Business Insider, it's five people for every one job. But we know that the levels of unemployment are actually much higher, because there are 1.8 million people who are looking for more work in our nation. (Time expired)