Employment increased by 178,800 people (1.4 per cent) between September and October and hours worked by 1.2 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labour Statistics at the ABS, said the seasonally adjusted strong increase means that employment in October was only 1.7 per cent below March, and reflects a large flow of people from outside the labour force back into employment.
“Encouragingly, the rise in employment was also accompanied by a strong rise in hours worked, particularly in Victoria, where hours increased by 5.6 per cent,” he said.
Since starting to ease restrictions in October, Victoria’s employment increased by 81,600 people (2.5 per cent). Employment and hours worked in Victoria remained 4.1 per cent and 9.0 per cent below March (compared to 1.7 per cent and 3.8 per cent for the rest of Australia).
Differences in employment continued to be seen between employees, for whom employment was 2.4 per cent lower than March, and non-employees, for whom employment was 1.2 per cent higher than March, in original terms.
Mr Jarvis said the number of people actively looking for work and who were available to start work increased in October.
“Coupled with a strong increase in employment, the participation rate increased by almost a whole percentage point in October to be just 0.1 percentage points below March. “
The Victorian participation rate increased 2.0 percentage points in October and was 1.4 percentage points below March. The Victorian unemployment rate increased by 0.7 percentage points to 7.4 per cent.
The youth (15-24 year olds) participation rate increased 2.2 percentage points to 68.2 per cent, which was also just 0.1 percentage points less than in March. The youth unemployment rate increased by 1.0 percentage point (to 15.6 per cent), alongside strong employment growth for youth (36,700 people).
Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash said labour force figures show that labour market conditions in Australia continued to recover in October, with employment increasing by 178,800 over the month, exceeding all market expectations.
RBA confirms how JobKeeper saved jobs
The Reserve Bank of Australia has detailed how one in every five people who received the JobKeeper payment would not have stayed employed over the April to July period without JobKeeper. At the national level, JobKeeper prevented at least 700,000 additional employment relationships being lost in the short term.
In a special discussion paper that looks at how JobKeeper softened the blow of employment losses in the first four months of the program, the RBA identified total employment losses of at least 700,000 were averted.
‘‘To put this estimate into perspective, the actual fall in employment over the first half of 2020 was 650,000. As such, our estimates imply that overall employment losses would have been twice as large over this period without JobKeeper,” the paper states.
‘‘Our baseline estimate is that receiving JobKeeper increased an employee’s probability of remaining employed by about 20 percentage points.’’
Business confidence and revenue outlook improves
Almost a quarter (24 per cent) of businesses reported an increase in their monthly revenue in November compared to 16 per cent in October, according to results released from ABS,
ABS Head of Industry Statistics John Shepherd said the latest Business Impacts of COVID-19 Survey showed signs of increasing confidence among businesses.
“As well as a greater proportion of businesses experiencing an increase in their revenue in November, one quarter (25 per cent) expect revenue to increase for December. Some businesses commented that seasonal factors had influenced these expectations.”
Mr Shepherd said the survey results also included information about capital expenditure plans for the next three months.
“One in five (22 per cent) businesses indicated they have capital expenditure plans over the next three months, with about three quarters (73 per cent) of these businesses expecting to spend the same or more than what is usual for this time of year.”
“We asked businesses what had influenced their capital expenditure plans. The most common factor reported by businesses was future economic uncertainty (29 per cent), however the proportion reporting this as a factor has halved since August (59 per cent).”
