Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please update the House on the release of today's jobs data? Treasurer, how is the government's economic plan creating more jobs while supporting Australian taxpayers with lower, fairer and simpler taxes so that they can keep more of what they earn?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. I'm sure all members on this side of the House and, I hope, all members on that side of the House will be pleased to know that unemployment has fallen to 5.3 per cent. That is the lowest level of unemployment we have seen since November 2012—almost six years. Unemployment fell to 5.3 per cent, with 19,300 extra full-time jobs created in July of this year, the month just passed. That's great news. It's also great news that 300,300 jobs have been created in just the last 12 months, and 65 per cent of those jobs, almost two-thirds of them, are full time. It is great news that around 600,000 jobs have been created since the last election, under the economic policies of the Turnbull government, and there are 21,300 fewer unemployed Australians today than there were at the time of the last election. So, fewer people unemployed, almost 600,000 more people in work and unemployment falling to 5.3 per cent—this is good news for the Australian economy and it's very good news for people out there seeking work.

But it goes further than that. More than a million jobs have been created by the coalition government since we were first elected, in 2013—since 2013, more than a million jobs, as we promised, as has been delivered and as has been exceeded in the time frame that we pledged at that election. Youth unemployment is down to 11.1 per cent. That is the best result—

Mr Bowen interjecting—

I hear the shadow Treasurer question whether this is an achievement. He questions whether youth unemployment falling to its lowest level since March 2012 is an achievement. How could you have a shadow Treasurer, a person who wants to be Treasurer of this country, who thinks Australians getting jobs—young people getting jobs and youth unemployment falling—is not an achievement? It is an achievement for those young people and it is an achievement for the businesses who put them into those jobs. Let's not forget that it was the Labor Party who opposed the Youth Jobs PaTH program, which has put 28,000 young people into jobs. This government is a jobs machine, working together with the Australian economy. It is a jobs machine that is responding to the economic policies.

I'm asked what has been happening with earnings. I can tell you that, from the weekly earnings data released today, they're up 2.7 per cent. That is the strongest result since November 2014. The full-time ordinary time earnings wage is now $82,700. The gender pay gap has fallen to 14.5 per cent—down from 17.2 per cent under Labor. (Time expired)