THE federal opposition's scare campaign against the carbon tax has failed its first test. The Bureau of Statistics reports that seasonally adjusted employment rose by 14,000 in July the month the tax took effect while unemployment fell to 5.2 per cent.
For the government, it was a double bonus after the TD Securities-Melbourne Institute monthly inflation gauge reported on Monday that inflation rose just 0.2 per cent in July, and was flat over the past three months.
While this was only the first test of the carbon tax, if the duo of rising employment and low inflation continues, it could have huge political implications undermining Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's repeated claim that the carbon tax would be "like a wrecking ball through our economy".
Mr Abbott yesterday stuck to his claim, pointing out that jobs rose only half as much in July as they had fallen in June. "Make no mistake, this is a python squeeze on our economy, and as time goes by it will squeeze families' cost of living, it will squeeze employment in this country," he said.
But Treasurer Wayne Swan was quick to claim vindication.
"It is yet more evidence that Tony Abbott's scare campaign on the carbon price and the mining tax is absolute baloney," he said. "Today's figures are the latest proof that he is deliberately misleading Australians and talking our economy down."
With the election not due for another year or more, the real test of the tax's impact on jobs and inflation lies ahead. But if the economy thrives over the coming year despite the tax as most forecasters expect it could become the political "game-changer" Labor is hoping for, discrediting the Coalition and its leader.
The bureau's preferred trend figures, however, paint a bleaker picture, which, if sustained, could give the debate to the Coalition. The trend data, which smooths out the ups and downs of monthly figures, estimates that job growth slowed to just 24,000 over the past three months, down from 42,000 over the previous three.
Forward indicators for employment are sending warning bells. The bureau's measure of job vacancies shrank by 15,000 in the 15 months to May.
Most of that decline was in Victoria, and mostly in white-collar jobs in professional offices, administration and healthcare.
Yesterday the SEEK index reported online job ads down 5 per cent last month and 11 per cent over the past year. The rival ANZ series was slightly less bleak, but it reported that job ads, online and in newspapers, shrank by 1800 last month and by 18,500, or 10 per cent, since February last year.
In trend terms, the bureau estimates that jobs have grown by 74,000 this year, or 10,000 a month. Only a third of the growth has been in full-time jobs. But the adult population is estimated to have grown by 136,000 in that time. Of the other 62,000, in net terms, the bureau estimates just 5000 more are unemployed, whereas 57,000 more have settled on the sidelines, not looking for work.
The jobs figures show Australia is still deeply divided between boom and bust, with Western Australia at one extreme, Tasmania at the other, and Victoria and NSW somewhere in the middle.
Western Australia is way out in front of any other state, adding 50,000 full-time jobs in the past year and cutting trend unemployment to 3.6 per cent. NSW takes the silver medal, but a long way behind, adding 20,000 full-time jobs in the year to July, with unemployment down to 5.1 per cent.
Victoria and Queensland were fighting out for the bronze. In Victoria, the bureau estimates, full-time jobs shrank by 23,000 in the year, but part-time jobs grew by 42,000. The state's unemployment rate was 5.4 per cent last month, down one notch from June.
Queensland, by contrast, added 4000 full-time jobs in the year while losing 10,000 part-time jobs. Its unemployment rate stayed at 5.6 per cent.
South Australia and Tasmania were clearly going backwards. On the bureau's figures, South Australia lost 18,000 full-time jobs in the past year one in 30 with unemployment up to 5.7 per cent. It now has fewer full-time jobs than it had before the GFC. Tasmania is in even worse trouble, losing 6800 full-time jobs in the past year, or more than one in 25.
Most forecasters still expect unemployment to edge up in coming months, if only slightly, with the Reserve Bank likely to deliver another interest rate cut this year.
