Federal Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch has welcomed recent Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional Trend Labour Force report prepared by Pete Faulkner.
Mr Entsch said the local figures for unemployment have been trending down for some time now, with plenty of progress being made just recently.
“These improvements are linked to the government’s commitment to enabling and supporting local businesses to give local job seekers a go,” Mr Entsch said.
“The federal government has made substantial investments into areas that are specifically tackling unemployment and supporting regional areas and the Conus briefing report indicates that the work we are doing is producing results.
“Since the last election, the youth unemployment rate in Cairns has just about halved, and Mr Faulkner’s report indicates we are rapidly approaching single digit percentages.”
Conus Director Pete Faulkner said after crunching the numbers there certainly is a clear trend upwards in employment growth.
“We have seen good improvements and solid growth in employment, both full time and part time jobs, with the pace of this improvement ramping up over the last 6-9 months,” Mr Faulkner said.
“With respect to unemployment figures, I suspect the ABS data is suffering from some extreme volatility in recent months, 3.5 per cent unemployment for Cairns is clearly too generous.
“I’m more conservative in my estimations, but having said that, there is no doubt that we’ve experienced a substantial reduction in the last 12 months alone, and we’re doing far better than the Queensland average.
“When we look at historical figures from 2012, the slump we suffered saw the unemployment rate sitting around 8.6 per cent.
“It is very clear we are well into the recovery now and while there’s always more to do, the trend is heading in the right direction.”
Since the Coalition Government came to office in September 2013, a total of 1,239,200 jobs have been created across the nation, an increase of 10.8 per cent.
For more information on the Conus report please visit:
www.conus.com.au/2019/02/exceptional-results-for-cairns-in-regional-labour-force-data-but-beware/
For further information on the Coalition Government’s employment programs and incentives visit:
