Worse to come: PM
Australia’s jobless rate soars
SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned citizens to brace for more bad news as data released yesterday showed the country’s monthly job losses rose to a record high because of coronavirus lockdown measures.
The unprecedented employment data provided a stark illustration of the pandemic’s effect on the national economy, which had experienced an unbroken run of growth for more than two decades.
Compounding concerns about the economic hit is a diplomatic spat with China, Australia’s largest trading partner, sparked by Morrison’s call for an international inquiry into the origins of the new coronavirus.
‘‘This is a tough day for Australia, a very tough day,’’ Morrison said in a televised media briefing. ‘‘Terribly shocking, although not unexpected.’’
The Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed 594,300 jobs were lost in April, the largest fall on record, underscoring Morrison’s decision to slowly begin reopening the country. The unemployment rate shot up to 6.2%, the highest since September 2015, from 5.2% in March. That was lower than the 8.3% forecast by economists in a Reuters poll, largely due to a significant decline in the number of people looking for work, including some receiving an emergency ‘‘jobseeker’’ payment from the Government.
If those people were included, the statistics office said, the unemployment rate would spike to 9.6%, the highest since 1997.
‘‘The terms ‘unprecedented’ and ‘extraordinary’ are used regularly to describe the effects of Covid19 on the economy but when discussing the impact on the job market, the terms are appropriate,’’ said Craig James, chief economist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Australia imposed strict social distancing measures in March to tackle the pandemic, closing its borders to all noncitizens and ordering people to stay home unless on essential business.
Officials have credited the lockdown measures with constraining the spread of the virus. Australia has recorded about 7000 Covid19 cases, including 98 deaths.
Morrison emphasised the need to move ahead with his Government’s threestep plan to remove all social distancing restrictions by July, a programme that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has said would increase gross domestic product by $A9.4 billion ($NZ10.1 billion) each month..
Reopening the economy has been partly overshadowed, however, by a row with China — which took about 38% of all Australia’s exports last year — over Australia’s push for the coronavirus inquiry.