280k jobs for Aussies by end of year: PM

The Prime Minister has called on hundreds of thousands of Australians to get to work this summer, declaring “we want you” ahead of a possible jobs boom before Christmas.

About 280,000 positions could be filled before the end of the year in Australia if post-lockdown jobs-growth trends experienced in 2020 end up being repeated, an unofficial analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data suggests.

“Australia is reopening safely and to secure our economic recovery we want to see more Australians in jobs this Christmas and summer,” Scott Morrison said.

“There’s hundreds of thousands of jobs available and we want you.”

Last year Australia lost 855,000 jobs during lockdowns, including 265,000 in NSW, 195,000 in Victoria, 198,000 in Queensland and 95,000 in Western Australia.

By December, when lockdowns had lifted about 725,000 – or 84 per cent – had been gained back.

Since the Delta outbreaks this year between August and October, about 330,000 jobs were lost.

But if the same 84 per cent trend in 2020 is repeated, Australia could recover 280,000 jobs before the New Year.

International travel is also now open, JobKeeper no longer in place and vaccination rates have eased lockdown fears.

Online job advertisement figures released on Wednesday show that there were 250,900 job vacancies in Australia in October, when lockdown restrictions were lifted in NSW, Victoria and Canberra.

During this period, NSW recorded a 16.9 per cent increase in job advertisements, followed by Victoria which had a 15.2 per cent rise.

Hospitality worker job advertisements increased in October, while there were an extra 3300 labourer positions that needed to be filled, the National Skills Commission report said.

The labourer jobs were mainly made up of food preperation workers, cleaners and laundry workers.

ABS figures show that the nation’s unemployment rate rose to a six-month high of 5.2 per cent in October with an increase in people looking for work as strict Covid restrictions eased.

The underemployment rate – where someone is employed, but would like more hours – also increased to a 12-month high of 9.5 per cent, with many businesses not operating at full capacity.