Essay about Unemployment Rates in Australia

Question: Discuss about theUnemployment Rates in Australia. Answer: Introduction The unemployment rate has been increasing in Australia since last many years. Now, the unemployment rate of Australia has increased from 7.61 in August 2001 to 13.19 in July of 2016. After calculating since the last 8 years, it is found that the unemployment rates have been increased or the number of unemployed people is increased in Australia. Australia is facing the biggest economic challenges because of the high unemployment issueas currently there are more than 80,0000 youth unemployed or jobless in Australia. The high unemployment ratesadversely affect the GDP of the Australia(Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2016). The high unemployment rate creates economic challenges for the Australian country as well as causes for the failure of the gross domestic products. Currently, Australia unemployment rate is at 5.7 percent which is pretty low because the Australian country has lots of unemployed people. In Tasmania, Queensland, and South Australia, the unemployment rates are higher in comparison to Northern territory of Australia. According to the recent figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in August 2016, the employment increased at an average of month growth rate of 0.1 percent as the unemployment rate fell from 5.7% in July 2016 to 5.6% in August 2016. It was the lowest unemployment rates since after 2013 as the Australian economy lost 3,900 jobs and the number of unemployed or jobless people decreased by 10,500 persons. The part time employment growth continued with an increase of 10,200 employees, while the full time employment decreased by 400 people(Australian Government, Department of Unemployment, 2015).Since 1978 to 2016, the unemployed rate in Australia has grown at an average of 6.93%, in October 1992; the unemployment rate was the highest of this time duration as it was 11.10 percent, while in February 2008 it was recorded the lowest which was 4.0 percent. The unemployment rates for different regions/territory of the Australian country in August 2016 wererecorded as for the Northern territory (3.5%), Australian Capital Territory (3.6%), New South Wales (5%), Victoria (5.5%), Queensland (6.2%), Western Australia (6.3%), South Australia (6.8%), and Tasmania (7.2%).In August 2016, 11963.72 thousands were employed persons and 713.28 thousands were unemployed persons throughout the Australian country. The youth unemployment rate was increased 13.19% in July 2016 to 13.24% in 2016. The unemployment trend statistics show that the unemployment rate remained almost steady at 5.7%, and unemployed participation rate steady at 64.8%(Murphy, 2016). The month hours worked in all jobs increased from 1.7 million hours to 1657.1 million hours. The employment rate decreased from 61.24% in July 2016 to 61.16% in August 2016. The youth unemployment rate has been increased from 13.24 to 13.16 in August 2016 and the productivity increased from 102.30 to 103 .50 in August 2016. Over the past twelve years, the full time employment increased by 83,800 at an average of 1.04% and the part time employment increased by 160,900 at an average rate of 4.48%. Over the past year the unemployment rate has decreased by an average of 6.0%. New South Wales recorded the lowest seasonally adjusted unemployment rates of 5.3% unchanged from March 2016. While, for Victoria and Western Australia recorded the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 5.6%, Tasmania 6.3%, Queensland 6.5%, and South Australia at 6.8%. Below mentioned chart shows the unemployment rate in Australian states: Source: Australian government, (2016) Source: Australian government, (2016) The above chart shows that unemployment rate of Tasmania is high as compare to other state or Territory in Australia. The rate of Tasmania in the year 2016 is 7.2%, which is highest unemployment rate over all the Australian states. South Australia had an unemployment rate of 6.8%, Western Australia 6.3%, Queensland 6.2%, Victoria 5.5%, New South Wales 5%, Australian Capital Territory 3.5%, and Northern Territory 3.5%. The people of the South Australia and Tasmania are struggling for jobs because the tax policy of the Australian government as it reduces the profit of the companies (Australian government, 2016). Due to this, Australian companies are being offshoring companies, which maake some people unemployed. On the other hand, low rate of the northern territory indicates that in these Australian states; business is growing continuously that creates the job opportunity for unemployed people. Issues: Australia is facing some common unemployment causes like industry shutdowns, recession, infrastructure, technology, natural disaster, and offshoring (Mavromaras et al, 2015). The shutdown of the industries is the major cause of the unemployment in Australia. Due to this, the many of the South Australia peoples out of the work that increases the unemployment rate. Apart from this, the worldwide recession also has the negative impact on the economic growth. It slow down the growth of Australian economy and develop the strict rules and regulation. To overcome the recession, if the company follows the rules and regulation of government, then it increases the unemployment rate of the economy. On the other hand, harder economic time of the Australian economy decreases the public and private companies investment on infrastructure. This affects the skills of the engineers and forces them to move overseas, which increase the unemployment rate of the economy (Sebastian, 2015). Furthermore, development of the technology is also a major cause of unemployment in an economy. Along with this, the tax rate of the Australian government is higher than western countries rate that influences the companies to offshore. The low tax rate and incentives policy of western countries increase the rate of Australian unemployment. As many of the Australian textile companies are going offshore. Due to tax benefit and incentives, Australian economy is becoming the service economy (Blackwell and Dollery, 2013). Furthermore, Australian economy faces the natural disaster like cyclone, flood, and earthquake. In Queensland people, works on banana implantation and Queensland is a cyclone-affected area. If cyclone hit the banana implantation then huge amount of unemployment will occur there. The unemployment rate affects the value of Australian Dollar, exchange rates, and GDP of the country. It also affects the industrial growth, exporting trade, trade economies, and economic conditions in the country. The Australian Government Department of Employment is responsible for formulating the national employment policies for creating safe, fair, and highly productive workplace. Government Policies The Australian Employment Department intervenes to reduce the unemployment rates by incorporating several employment policies for providing employment to the different kinds of employees after reducing the employment barriers. The Australian government focuses on two strategies for reducing unemployment in different regions/territories of Australia. The first policy is demand side policy for reducing the demand-side unemployment and the second policy is supply side policy related to reducing structural unemployment(Scutt, 2016). The Australian Employment Department has been adopting several initiatives for reducing unemployment throughout the Australian country. It has been focusing on reducing unemployment through decreasing interest rates, lowering tax rates,promoting training and educational facilities, facilitating geographical subsidies, lowering minimum wages to reduce the real wage unemployment, and flexibility of the labor markets. The Australian government intervenes to reduce the unemployment rates for providing the unemployed or jobless persons a range of employment opportunities in order to ensure the high GDP or economic growth of the country. The high employment rates will encourage more national and international business activities and mobility of the Australian labors in the Australian industries. The Australian government invests huge expenditure on the employment infrastructure for providing more jobs to the jobless persons or the job applicants who are seeking for new jobs. The Australian employment department is continuing its efforts to determine the minimum wages for enhancing the living standards of the employees in the country(Trade Economics, 2016). The Australian government is also investing hugely in the training, education, and industrial infrastructure for enhancing the employment opportunities in the country. The lower tax rates will assist to decrease the cost of borrowing and encourage people to spend and invest. The lower tax rates will be effective to increase GDP as well as reducing the demand deficient unemployment. References Australia Bureau of Statistics (2016).Increasing part-time employment continues. [Online]. Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/46DFE12FCDB783D9CA256B740082AA6C?OpenDocument. (Accessed: 28 September 2016). Australian Government, Department of Unemployment (2015).Labour Force Region (SA4) - Unemployment Rate by State and Territory.[Online]. Available at:https://lmip.gov.au/default.aspx?LMIP/LFR_SAFOUR/LFR_UnemploymentRate. (Accessed: 28 September 2016). Australian government (2016) Labour Force Region (SA4) - Unemployment Rate by State and Territory. [Online]. Available at: https://lmip.gov.au/default.aspx?LMIP/LFR_SAFOUR/LFR_UnemploymentRate (Accessed on: 29 September, 2016). Blackwell, B. and Dollery, B., (2013) Resource taxation and remote Aboriginal expenditure. Economic Papers: A journal of applied economics and policy,32(3), pp.360-382. Mavromaras, K., Sloane, P. and Wei, Z., (2015) The scarring effects of unemployment, low pay and skills under-utilization in Australia compared. Applied economics,47 (23), pp.2413-2429. Murphy, J. (2016). Hopeless cases: The bitter taste of Australias employment problem. [Online]. Available at: https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/hopeless-cases-the-bitter-taste-of-australias-employment-problem/news-story/ae4504c4341e10b27098ef1680edc8fd. (Accessed: 28 September 2016). Scutt, D. (2016). Australia Unemployment Steady at 5.7%.[Online]. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/here-comes-australias-jobs-report-2016-5. (Accessed: 28 September 2016). Sebastian (2015) Causes of unemployment common causes in Australia. [Online]. Available at: https://www.adelaide-southaustralia.com/money/causes-of-unemployment/ (Accessed on: 29 September, 2016). Trade Economics (2016).Australia Unemployment Rate.[Online]. Available at: https://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/unemployment-rate. (Accessed: 28 September 2016).