The latest ABS job figures for February showed that there were more than 844,000 people employed, in trend terms, which is a near record high for South Australia.
In February, there were 115 million hours worked in the economy, including an extra 2.2 million more than this time last year, delivering an extra $80 million in wages paid to South Australian workers. This was a 2 percent growth rate, which is higher than the national rate.
South Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in February fell by 0.6 percentage points to 5.7 percent.
The trend unemployment rate remains steady at 5.9 percent.
In February, 3,800 more South Australians joined the workforce in seasonally adjusted terms.
Minister for Industry and Skills David Pisoni said the latest jobs figures indicate continued confidence and growth in the South Australian economy but there’s still more work to do.
“The Marshall Liberal Government’s plan is to create more than 20,800 apprenticeships and traineeships over four years to drive employment growth and ensure we provide the skills necessary to diversify into new industries such as Defence, space, cybersecurity, entrepreneurship and the aged and disability care sector.
“In recent months we have seen solid full-time jobs growth, with more people finding full‑time work as employers respond favourably to the Marshall Liberal Government’s policies including scrapping payroll tax for thousands small businesses.
Minister Pisoni said growing business confidence in South Australia was reflected in recent Bank SA and Business SA surveys showing this key indicator remaining steady at 8 to 10 year highs.
This has translated into private business investment growing at 2.2 per cent over the quarter to December 2018, and 11.0 per cent over the year. This is a very strong result.
The Minister said the Marshall Liberal Government has a strong economic agenda with significant job creation measures including $95 million cuts in land tax from mid next year, $360 million savings in the Emergency Services Levy, $203 million towards the Skilling South Australia initiative and a record $11 billion infrastructure spend.”
The figures also reflect a slight improvement in youth unemployment over the month, dropping to 15.2 percent in February, down from 15.4 percent in the previous month.
