{"id":521923,"date":"2026-03-06T06:26:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/521923\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T06:26:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:26:22","slug":"theres-no-end-to-the-government-funded-jobs-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/521923\/","title":{"rendered":"There&#8217;s no end to the government-funded jobs boom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday\u2019s national accounts release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that government spending continued to be a key driver of GDP growth in 2025, continuing the strong growth experienced since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Real-GDP-by-component.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"424\" alt=\"GDP components\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chart by Alex Joiner (IFM Investors)<\/p>\n<p>The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a key driver of the growth in public spending, alongside the boom in healthcare and social assistance jobs:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Health-employment-1.png\" width=\"652\" height=\"660\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Health employment\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>NDIS payments are treated as public demand because they are funded by the government and classified as part of general government consumption.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday\u2019s national accounts release showed that total hours worked in the non-market (government-funded) sector, which comprises the public service, healthcare &amp; social assistance, and education industries, continued to grow significantly faster than the market (private) sector:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Hours-worked-by-sector.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"546\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Hours worked by sector\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>As illustrated above by Justin Fabo from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.antipodeanmacro.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Antipodean Macro<\/a>, total hours worked in the non-market sector have increased by around 34% since the March quarter of 2018, roughly triple the circa 11% growth recorded across the market sector.<\/p>\n<p>This explosion in non-market sector hours worked has clearly had a detrimental impact on Australia\u2019s labour productivity growth, given that GDP per hour worked in the non-market sector has experienced virtually zero growth in two decades and has fallen sharply since mid-2022:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Labour-productivity-by-sector.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"550\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Labour productivity\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, GDP per hour worked in the market sector has grown by nearly 30% over the past two decades and rose by 1.5% in 2025, above the total labour productivity growth of 1.0%.<\/p>\n<p>The latest costings showed that NDIS payments made to participants in the December quarter of 2025 grew 16.1% year-over-year:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/NDIS-payments.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"544\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"NDIS payments\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) last year forecast that the NDIS could hit $100 billion in a decade, more than the Aged Pension:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NDIS-Spending-Forecast-August-2025.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"446\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Annual NDIS spending\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Therefore, unless NDIS expenditure is brought under control, the unsustainable growth in the non-market economy will persist.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>More broadly, Australia\u2019s governments need to pull back on their expenditure and stop crowding out the market (private) sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday\u2019s national accounts release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that government spending continued to be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-521923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521923","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=521923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}