Victoria has become a lead weight on the nation’s job market, experiencing significantly higher unemployment and underemployment than the national average.
Chart by Alex Joiner (IFM Investors)
The following table from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) April labour force report shows that Victoria’s trend unemployment rate (4.8%) and underemployment rate (6.4%) were the highest on the mainland, easily exceeding the national average:
The latest online job ads data from Jobs & Skills Australia (JSA), presented below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, shows that Victoria was also the only state in Australia to have fewer job ads than in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic:
New estimates from Roy Morgan Research suggest that Australia’s workforce size (which combines employed and unemployed) declined by 403,000 over the three months since February, when the Reserve Bank began raising interest rates.
In Victoria, the workforce fell by 162,000, which accounted for 40% of the overall decline in the Australian workforce.
More importantly, there has also been a decline in employment according to Roy Morgan, led by Victoria.
In Victoria, employment fell by 172,000 over the three months to May, accounting for 45% of the overall decline in Australian employment. Around the rest of Australia, employment is down by 210,000 (55% of the overall decline).
Victoria has the lowest private business investment per capita of any mainland state, the highest state debt, and the fastest‑rising interest bill. Its manufacturing sector is also in long-term decline, making the state overly dependent on low-productivity service industries.
As a result, businesses are not expanding headcount at the pace needed to absorb the rapidly growing workforce via immigration.
Victoria’s sluggish labour market presents another headache for the incumbent Labor government in the lead-up to the November state election.
