Cassy O'Connor MP | Greens Leader and Treasury spokesperson
Four hundred Tasmanians lost their jobs last month with the latest ABS data revealing the continued trend of job losses in Tasmania.
Today’s ABS release marks the sixth consecutive month of declining employment for Tasmania.
Since last September, around 4000 Tasmanians have lost their jobs. For these Tasmanians the 'Brighter Future' is a mirage.
It is statistically evident that job growth began in November 2013, well before the Hodgman Liberal’s took office. By December 2014, job growth had plateaued.
The bottom line is that under a Liberal Government a strong trend in job growth under the Labor Green government was quickly stifled in 9 months, flat-lined for a year, and then began a six month decline.
The average monthly job growth rate was 1,043 jobs per month between November 2013 and March 2014. This declined to an average of 653 jobs per month between April 2014 and December 2014. Throughout 2015, this number remained relatively stable.
Throughout 2015 the Liberals were unable to point to strong job growth, so instead relied on the tactic of using the election date as a reference point. This relied on the short period of job growth throughout 2014, conveniently ignoring the reality of almost a year’s worth static employment levels.
By the end of 2015 the Liberals began to be a lot quieter on the issue, at this point we began to see a decline in employment.
Welfare data supports this observed trend. Newstart recipients in Tasmania have increased from 21,667 in December 2013, to 21,812 in December 2014 and 22,002 December 2015.
Any economic improvements we have seen under the liberal Government is a result of post financial crisis recovery.
This gift of economic recovery has been squandered by the Liberal Government and ultimately, in the case of employment, has been quickly reversed.