Does anyone actually believe the unemployment rate was just 6.2% last month?? Don't. All that number proves is how irrelevant the official unemployment rate has become. Let's walk through the math: ...2 @unionsaustralia #ausecon #ABS #LFS
Official unemployment increased by just 105,000 people. Not too bad, right? Wrong. 500,000 people lost work but 'left' the labour force. Why? To be included in the labour force, you must be available for work and actively seeking it. What was the point of that in April? ...3
Let's count them in actual unemployed. Then there's another 750,000 Australians who were 'employed' but didn't work a single hour. JobKeeper helps on that score. Include them & unemployment is now 2.1 million--not the official 823,000. That's 15% of the adjusted labour force ...4
Then we must account for the big drop in hours for those who did work. Average monthly hours for those still employed fell 7 hours in April, or 5%. That's equivalent to the loss of another 600,000 full time equivalent positions. That takes genuine unemployment to almost 20% ..5
So anyone who claims unemployment was 'not as bad as expected', has not worked through how that misleading 6.2% number was constructed. A more meaningful number is 20%. This is a good reason why we need a more accurate way to measure unemployment: in the pandemic, and after. END
