Treasurer Jim Chalmers on jobs and work

Treasurer Jim Chalmers released his White Paper on employment this week. Its aim is for everyone who wants a job to be able to get one without having to search for too long. The paper says that a surprisingly large number of people are looking for work or for more hours of work, some three million, and that’s when unemployment is at a low 3.7% and we have labour shortages in multiple sectors.

Chalmers recognises that Australia’s labour market is “really resilient” and the government started in a position of “genuine strength” but the unemployment figures don’t paint the full picture:

First of all, the unemployment rate is not the whole story. There are other indications around under utilisation and other data that we talk about in the white paper [on jobs and opportunities]. But also a lot of people confront barriers to working or to working more. And that’s why really a big feature, a key focus of the white paper is how do we make it easier for people to grab the opportunities of a changing economy, which is creating jobs? But we need to get better at hooking people up to them.

In this podcast, Chalmers also canvasses inflation, migration, the cost of living pressures on households and concerns about China’s economy.