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Data for April shows those receiving JobSeeker and Youth Allowance (other) payments fell by 9.2% from March (or about 120,000 people) despite JobKeeper ending. However, there is a caveat; the eligibility for two groups of people (those with partners earning more than $2,079.50 a fortnight, and those permanent residents who have been in Australia less than 4 years) has been removed from April onward. Data granular enough to determine the exact effect of these changes is not available but analysis using what data is to hand suggests the effect, while non-zero, is relatively minor possibly meaning the month-month decline might be closer to 8% than 9% as reported.
Even with this caveat it appears clear that there was no surge of people dropping off JobKeeper and finding themselves on the dole queue. That is also supported by the Labour Force data released yesterday, and the accompanying comments from the ABS (see here for details)
In Queensland the reported decline was 8.0% with 24,000 fewer people receiving payments.
In our own region, Cairns declined 8.8% (or 1,831 people) while Townsville was down 7.5% (or 1,158 people) to their lowest levels since March last year.
The complete Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional JobSeeker Trend & s.a. data set for all the Queensland regions is available for download below. Please feel free to use this data but kindly acknowledge Conus/CBC Staff Selection when you do so.
Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional JobSeeker Trend & s.a. QLD – Apr 2021
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series