Aaron Morey

CCIWA Chief Economist

Western Australia has recorded an improved unemployment rate of 7 per cent, with a strong spike in part time jobs in August. All up, 27,100 part time jobs and 5,100 full time jobs were recovered in the month.

 

This places WA in the middle of the pack compared to the unemployment rate of other States, with only Tasmania and Victoria going backwards in August.

 

WA is also closing in on pre-pandemic levels of hours worked, working 188 million hours in August.

 

However, there are still around 28,000 fewer Western Australians with a full-time job since the start of the pandemic, with the majority of those (17,000) being women. 

 

These results are consistent with the ‘eye of the storm’ analogy laid out in CCIWA’s Outlook publication, with immense fiscal stimulus still holding up our economy. The eventual expiry of JobKeeper – which exceeded $100 billion this month – and many other support measures like rent freezes and fee waivers, all constitute a further storm front of economic uncertainty on our horizon. We should not expect this to be a linear recovery.

 

With businesses creating six out seven jobs in Western Australia, we must drive more business investment to complete the recovery of the full-time jobs lost during this pandemic. Measures that would give confidence to WA businesses to invest – like the tax reforms, increased competition in electricity markets and regulatory sandbox scheme recommended in CCIWA’s Pre-Budget Submission – would foster the creation of new jobs and support a stronger economic recovery that benefits all sectors and workers.