In Australia one entry-level job is advertised for every 48 people who are relying on JobSeeker payments. Now that JobKeeper has been discontinued and thousands of Australians are at risk of losing their jobs the competition for these highly sort after new employment opportunities has risen significantly.
There are eight people who receive the JobSeeker or Youth Allowance payment for every job that is advertised. The ratio is higher when it comes to entry-level jobs, with 48 people on the social security payments for each job being advertised.
The situation is even more challenging in regional parts of Australia, where there are 12 jobseekers for every employment opportunity that is advertised and 57 jobseekers for every entry-level employment position.
The Australian Retailers Association (ARA) has joined ACOSS to protest that the $50-a-week cut in JobSeeker starting on 1st April 2021 has the potential to significantly damage the economy.
ARA argues that the number of people on JobSeeker when compared with every job advertised was high and the payment should be raised to the same level as the age pension “to keep people above the poverty line”.
Australia is set to revert to having one of the lowest rates of unemployment payment in the OECD. Australia comes in at the second lowest only behind Greece.
The coronavirus supplement for JobSeeker and Youth Allowance recipients will be reduced from $150 to $50. The Australian Retailers Association (ARA) believes that it should be raised to around $65 so that it sits just above the poverty line.
The payment fell from $52.11 a day to $44.97 on 31st March 2021. Youth Allowance was also reduced from $44.37 a day to $37.23.
National Skills Commission analysis reveals that the number of unemployed Australians for every job vacancy peaked at 11.8 in April 2020.
As of February 2021, the number has since dropped to 4.2 unemployed persons per vacancy. This is below the 4.5 unemployed persons per job vacancy in February 2020.
The JobKeeper scheme ended on Sunday 28th March. The ATO has warned employers that they could potentially lose access to the wage subsidy payments if they deny workers their redundancy entitlements.
The Treasury has estimated that up to 150,000 employees across the country are likely to lose their job as a result of the discontinuation of JobKeeper. The scheme has cost the government an excess of $90 billion.
The ATO is keeping an eye out for schemes that consist of employees not receiving certain entitlements when the employment is finished, such as redundancy payments, or where wages received by the employee are paid in substitution for payment of entitlements.
According to the ATO, at the time when JobKeeper ended over 1 million employees and 370,000 businesses were being supported by the program.
JobKeeper made it possible for many businesses to keep all of their employees on the payroll, engaged in in their day-to-day activities with the business.
As a result of JobKeeper a lot of businesses managed to keep their most experienced staff. Without JobKeeper having to find and reemploy new skilled staff would’ve cost a lot of time, money and resources who were desperate to re-open as soon as restriction were lifted.
One of the biggest success stories of JobKeeper is that it prevented the unemployment rate from spiking. Employees who were paid JobKeeper were still considered as ’employed’ even though they were being paid by taxpayer funds, in many cases to work zero hours.
At the peak of the pandemic, almost a third of Australian workers were on JobKeeper. This totalled to 3.6 million Australian workers, out of a work force of around 13 million.
The number of employees across the country requiring JobKeeper has dropped as the economy continues to recover. The number of Australian workers on JobKeeper dropped down to 1.6 million in October, 1.5 million in December and 1.1 million in January.