While the US presidential count was occurring last week, the latest Australian payroll job figures were released, showing just how slowly the recovery is going, with jobs for both men and women falling across every state in October.
As Victoria comes out of lockdown it is pretty clear, based on what happened across the nation in May, that there will be a strong return of some jobs. But not all.
For now the latest jobs figures show that Victoria in October remained, unsurprisingly, mired in job losses. But the more sobering and perhaps surprising news is that the rest of the nation was not improving at all:
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In the first few weeks of October it wasn’t Victoria that saw the biggest job losses, but New South Wales. Partly that is because Victoria had already lost a lot of jobs in September, but Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory all had worse job losses than locked-down Victoria.
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The job losses were felt by both men and women. Some states – NSW, Tasmania and WA – had bigger losses for women in October, while in Victoria, SA and Queensland, men suffered more.
Overall since the full force of the pandemic hit in early March, women were clearly the ones to lose the most work as accommodation and food services and retail trade took a massive hit from lockdowns.
But they also saw a stronger recovery than male employment once things began to open up.
Now we find that both men and women have lost work in relatively equal numbers:
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What we are seeing, however, is that the difference of job losses and gains is not so much about gender as age.
In October, men and women in only one age group saw jobs increase – teenagers:
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Indeed, so strong has the job growth for teenagers been that there are now estimated to be 10% more teenagers in work than there were when the pandemic hit:
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And while it is good that young workers have been able to get work, the divide between job growth for youth and the rest of the working population is a worrying sign for the recovery.
Real estate services, accommodation and food, and insurance are the industries that have seen the strongest teenager job growth since 15 August, when youth jobs growth surged ahead of the rest of the population.
But very few young people work in insurance or real estate.
The two industries combined that employ nearly two thirds of all teenagers are accommodation and food services and retail.
While accommodation and food services has seen a strong recent increase in jobs for teenagers, the overall number remains barely above where it was in March – only three industries have been worse hit since the pandemic hit.
And yet the recovery of jobs for teenagers in that industry far exceeds that of workers aged 20 to 59:
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Around 20% fewer non-teenagers work in the industry now than in March.
It suggests there is some part-time work for youth available, but the more secure, ongoing and full-time work in the sector remains yet to return.
We see the same in the retail sector:
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The Bureau of Statistics estimates there are 20% more teenagers working in retail now than in March. That seems quite extraordinary, and would normally suggest some sort of boom in the sector.
But then we see that for everyone else there are 4% fewer jobs.
It suggests as well a sector providing low-paying, short-term and short-hour work, but no return of the full-time work that adults need.
Youth unemployment is often an indicator of where the economy is going. In bad times it is always the first to fall. But the recent sharp growth of youth work while everyone else struggles does not suggest youth are leading the way to recovery, but that the economy continues to struggle.
