March 16, 2017
Queensland has the highest unemployment rate in Australia with almost 12,000 jobs disappearing in just one month, according to Labour Force statistics released on Thursday.
LNP Shadow Treasurer Scott Emerson said Queensland now had the highest unemployment rate in Australia and 66,000 fewer full-time jobs than 12 months ago.
He said the State also had the largest number of people who had given up looking for work.
Mr Emerson said today’s figures were more evidence that Queensland was stagnating.
“Our unemployment rate continues to trend higher – on both available measures. On a seasonally-adjusted basis we are up at 6.7 per cent, which is the worst in the country.
“The Premier claims her government cares about ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ but she’s silent on the fact that Queensland jobseekers are losing hope under her government.”
State Treasurer Curtis Pitt was more positive about the result.
“I am concerned we have seen a slight rise in today’s trend figure of 6.4 per cent – up from a revised 6.3 per cent in January – but this is still an improvement on the 6.7 per cent peak we saw for four months in 2014 under the LNP,” Mr Pitt said.
“A net total of 33,700 jobs have been created in Queensland since the election and we’ve seen Queensland’s trend unemployment decrease 0.2 of a percentage point since the election – from the 6.6 per cent we inherited from Tim Nicholls.
“On average 1350 jobs have been created each month since January 2015.
“While we saw 1500 jobs created last month alone, I want to see our unemployment rate below 6 per cent which means there is more work to be done, especially in regional Queensland.”
ACTU President Ged Kearney painted a grim picture with the national figures.
“Total unemployment is rising, with around 750,000 people now without work, and more than one million employed people who want more hours of work. Also of grave concern is rising youth unemployment,” he said.
He said that nationally, unemployment had climbed from 5.7 per cent to 5.9 per cent in February, underemployment was back to a record high of 8.7 per cent and youth unemployment was back up to 13.3 per cent.
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Comparison across Australian States (released by LNP):
