Female, part-time workers in cafes, bars and restaurants get hit hard

Posted on June 28, 2020 by Pete Faulkner - Uncategorized

The ABS Industry Employment data out last week allows us to take a look to see where the axe has fallen in the months up to May in terms of job losses (see here for more detail on regional labour force). While losses were seen in almost all industry sectors there was nowhere more heavily hit that the Accommodation & Food Services sector.

Between February and May Australia lost a total of 822,000 employed across all sectors (all numbers quoted are ABS original quarterly data) which equated to a decline in employment of 6.3% over the quarter.
Of those, 276,200 (or 33.6%) were from the Accommodation & Food Services sector which represented a fall of 29.7% q/q.
More specifically 253,800 (30.9%) were from the Food & Beverage Service sub-sector which fell by 30.5% q/q.
Not surprisingly most of these losses were seen in part-time positions, down 185,300 or 35.0% q/q…..
..and of those part-time losses female workers accounted for 112,600, a decline over the quarter of 35.3%.
All up, female, part-time workers in the Food & Beverage Service sub-sector accounted for 13.7% of all employment lost over the quarter.