{"id":453729,"date":"2026-02-02T14:38:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453729\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T14:38:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:38:23","slug":"australia-is-addicted-to-government-funded-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453729\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia is addicted to government-funded jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Joiner, chief economist at IFM Investors, recently published the following chart showing the outsized contribution of the non-market sector (i.e., public services, healthcare &amp; social assistance, and education) to overall job growth.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Filled-jobs-by-sector.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"658\" alt=\"Filled jobs by sector\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Of the 926,425 jobs created between Q1 2023 and Q3 2025, 637,273 (69%) were in the non-market sector that is primarily government funded.<\/p>\n<p>This was despite the non-market sector comprising only 31.5% of total Australian jobs, according to analysis from CBA:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Market-vs-non-market-job-share.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"633\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Labour force composition\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released quarterly labour market data showing the explosive growth of non-market sector jobs over recent years, driven by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).<\/p>\n<p>In the year to November 2025, Australia\u2019s job market expanded by 179,900 jobs, of which 186,400 were in the non-market sectors of Healthcare &amp; Social Assistance (112,200), Education (51,200), and Public Administration &amp; Safety (22,900):<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Annual-change-in-jobs-1.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"399\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Annual change in jobs\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Between the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2020 and November 2025, Australia\u2019s labour market expanded by 1,729,000, with 948,700 of these jobs in the non-market sectors of Healthcare &amp; Social Assistance (587,700), Education (198,400), and Public Administration &amp; Safety (162,500):<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Change-in-jobs-since-Covid.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"388\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Change in jobs since Covid\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Most of this non-market job growth occurred after the Albanese government took office in May 2022:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Change-in-jobs-under-Labor.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"383\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Change in jobs under Labor\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Between May 2022 and November 2025, 1,152,000 jobs were created, with 651,670 of those in the non-market sectors of Healthcare &amp; Social Assistance (349,300), Education (187,300), and Public Administration &amp; Safety (115,100).<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>As Alex Joiner illustrated in December, the unemployment rate was significantly lower in the non-market sector (1.7%) than the market sector (5.4%):<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Unemployment-rate-by-sector.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"536\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Unemployment rates by sector\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Worryingly, this government-funded expansion of non-market jobs has driven the recent decline in the nation\u2019s productivity:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Productivity-by-sector.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"535\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Non-market productivity\"\/><\/p>\n<p>As a result, Australia\u2019s productivity growth since the pandemic has ranked near the very bottom of the OECD:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Average-productivity-growth.png\" width=\"510\" height=\"660\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Productivity growth since Covid\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Australia\u2019s governments need to pull back and stop crowding out the private sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Joiner, chief economist at IFM Investors, recently published the following chart showing the outsized contribution of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-453729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}