Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was busy spruiking Australia’s record jobs growth at Thursday’s address to the National Press Club:
“Around 650,000 jobs were created, since we came to government. More than any first-term government in Australian history”.
“Last year is the first year since monthly records began where unemployment stayed below 4%—the first time ever”.
“As a Labor Prime Minister, I can’t be prouder of anything greater than that achievement”.
The first thing to note is that Australia’s unemployment rate is the same today (3.9%) as it was when the Coalition left power.
Moreover, the 650,000 jobs created have been absorbed by the record boom in net overseas migration, which hit an all-time high 518,000 in the 2022-23 financial year:
Check out the next chart, showing the explosion in Australia’s working age population, which exploded by 3.0% in the 2023 calendar year amid record net overseas migration and Peter Costello’s ‘baby bonus’ children hitting working age:
Source: Alex Joiner
So basically, Anthony Albanese is celebrating the creation of jobs for migrants.
The forward-looking indicators on the Australian labour market are also poor.
Job ads have declined sharply, whereas the number of applicants per job ad has surged way past pre-pandemic levels:
The latter, in particular, points to sharply rising unemployment ahead:
This is because jobs growth is slowing at the same time as labour supply is growing at a furious rate driven by historically high net overseas migration.
Anthony Albanese also told the National Press Club that “just as we promised Australians – wages are moving again… Wages are growing at their fastest rate in almost 15 years – including two consecutive quarters of real wages growth”.
In reality, real wages have plunged to 2010 levels as inflation has easily outpaced wage growth:
Real wage growth will also remain stillborn as Labor floods the labour market with migrant supply, pushing unemployment higher.
