Switch to JobKeeper 2.0 hits small business hard

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Pete Faulkner - COVID-19, Jobs, QLD, Uncategorized

At the end of Sept the JobKeeper stimulus, which had been in place since April, converted to a more stringent set of qualification requirements (as well as decreases to the amounts paid) for the period to the end of Dec at which time there will be another (and probably final) change to the scheme until it ends at the end of March. We now have weekly payrolls data from the ABS up to Nov 14th and what this confirms is the sharply negative impact that this shift from JobKeeper 1.0 to JobKeeper 2.0 has had on small business (less than 20 employees).

While larger businesses (more than 200 employees) have continued to recover payrolls, and are now almost back to pre-COVID levels and up more than 2% since the end of Sept, those at the small end of town have seen sharp falls. Small business payrolls are still 6% below their levels in mid-March having returned to pre-COVID levels by the end of Sept. Medium sized businesses, although not recovered to the same extent as their lager cousins, have appeared to see almost no change since the switch to JobKeeper 2.0.

What the data also shows us is the better performance that Queensland has enjoyed since the better health outcomes became apparent in the middle of the year. Both medium and small businesses in Queensland have performed better by about 2-2.5% and have maintained that out-performance since mid-year. Interestingly, larger businesses seem to have experienced no difference in Queensland when compared to Australia as a whole.