{"id":59358,"date":"2025-08-11T06:33:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/59358\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T06:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:33:13","slug":"australias-job-boom-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/59358\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s job boom is over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government-funded jobs have artificially fueled Australia\u2019s jobs boom over the past two years.<\/p>\n

As illustrated below by Alex Joiner from IFM Investors, around 80% of jobs created over the past two years have been in the non-market sector, which is reliant on government funding.<\/p>\n

\"Filled<\/p>\n

The non-market sector generated around 658,000 jobs between Q1 2023 and Q1 2025, compared to only 140,200 jobs created in the market (private) sector.<\/p>\n

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The increase in non-market jobs is the main reason Australia has an unemployment rate of only 4.3%.<\/p>\n

\"Unemployment<\/p>\n

As illustrated above, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has foolishly forecast that Australia\u2019s unemployment will remain at its current low level over the next two years.<\/p>\n

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The clear and present danger is that non-market job creation plummets (or the sector sheds jobs) and there is not an adequate handover to the private sector.<\/p>\n

Given the strong growth in the labour force via persistently high net overseas migration, such a scenario would imply a sharp increase in unemployment.<\/p>\n

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Already, the alternative indicators of the labour market are looking shaky.<\/p>\n

Roy Morgan\u2019s alternative unemployment rate, which considers anybody to be unemployed if they want a job but are not working, has shot up recently.<\/p>\n

\"Roy<\/p>\n

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SEEK\u2019s job ad and applications per job ad data suggest that the labour market is soft.<\/p>\n

\"Seek<\/p>\n

Jobs & Skills Australia\u2019s internet vacancies index also points to higher unemployment:<\/p>\n

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\"Unemployment<\/p>\n

State and federal budgets are also stretched, leading to cost-cutting and austerity\u2014neither of which is good news for non-market jobs.<\/p>\n

For example, the Victorian government announced in its recent state budget plans to cut 2,000 to 3,000 public sector jobs, with estimates<\/a> suggesting that the government may lay off up to 6,500 workers.<\/p>\n

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The NSW government last week announced<\/a> that more than 1,500 roles will be cut in a fortnight.<\/p>\n

Federal government departments are also reportedly<\/a> facing \u201cfunding cliffs\u201d that will result in thousands of job losses.<\/p>\n

For example, the Health department stated its budget is forecast to decline from $1.69 billion in 2024-25 to $893 million by 2027-28, while the Energy department forecast its funding would fall from $357 million in 2025-26 to $180 million by 2028-29.<\/p>\n

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The worst of the likely budget shortfalls will take effect from 2026-27, when upwards of 100 programs will have their funding expire.<\/p>\n

The federal government is also under intense pressure to trim the cost of the NDIS, which has been the main driver of the massive expansion of non-market jobs.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s non-market job boom is over amid the era of austerity.<\/p>\n

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With Australia\u2019s private sector failing to fire and the government continuing to import hundreds of thousands of migrant workers annually, there is a real risk that Australia\u2019s unemployment rate will soar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government-funded jobs have artificially fueled Australia\u2019s jobs boom over the past two years. As illustrated below by Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-59358","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\/59358","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=59358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}