Statistics do not lie; it is human’s interpretation that bends the truth.
Given the slow climb of unemployment for the past few months prior to May, the fall in unemployment rate from 5.7% to 5.5% in April is a sign of bad time, and reveals cracks in the definition of employment / unemployment.
A person is considered employed, by definition, if he works for no less than 1 hour and gets paid during the survey period. This simply means that if a full time worker who works for 35 hours is being replaced by 5 casual workers, each working 1 hour for that week will result in boosting the employment rate by 400% or mathematically,
(5 workers - 1 worker) ÷ 1 worker x 100%
However, the utilised hours has dropped by 85.7% or
(35 hours – 1 hour per worker x 5 workers) ÷ 35 hours x 100%
Many news sources report that businesses have been sacking workers since the downturn. These include labourers, factory workers, office workers, service industry workers, middle management and CEO. The sacking leads to an increase in unemployment rate.
The increase will continue until reaching a point whereby a business operator decides to keep the business going, hoping that the bad wind will blow over. The operator may choose to reduce the number of hours of operation, by declaring the existing positions redundant and creating new positions engaging casual workers, or outsourcing the work to contractors, who normally engaged casual workers on demand.
The scenarios above are real and as a result, the employment rate will improve for a short period until a saturation point is reached. Unfortunately, this point is reached rather quickly and the latest release of unemployment rates for May shows that the rates are to 5.7% nationwide and 5.9% for Victoria, respectively.
In June, the rate may fall slightly again to 5.8%, due to the extra spending in April-May which prompted business operators to put on more casual workers. However the rise will resume thereafter when the government handout is expensed. More obvious rise will occur in September-October when the Federal Government’s First Home Buyers Grant Boosts are reduced to half of the original amounts.
This Christmas retail spending is going to be very bleak, and by February 2010 when all the credit card bills for Christmas spending arrive in the post and Council rates are due, the crunch will hit extremely hard. The casual works will disappear, and unemployment rate soar sky high.
Given the slow climb of unemployment for the past few months prior to May, the fall in unemployment rate from 5.7% to 5.5% in April is a sign of bad time, and reveals cracks in the definition of employment / unemployment.
A person is considered employed, by definition, if he works for no less than 1 hour and gets paid during the survey period. This simply means that if a full time worker who works for 35 hours is being replaced by 5 casual workers, each working 1 hour for that week will result in boosting the employment rate by 400% or mathematically,
(5 workers - 1 worker) ÷ 1 worker x 100%
However, the utilised hours has dropped by 85.7% or
(35 hours – 1 hour per worker x 5 workers) ÷ 35 hours x 100%
Many news sources report that businesses have been sacking workers since the downturn. These include labourers, factory workers, office workers, service industry workers, middle management and CEO. The sacking leads to an increase in unemployment rate.
The increase will continue until reaching a point whereby a business operator decides to keep the business going, hoping that the bad wind will blow over. The operator may choose to reduce the number of hours of operation, by declaring the existing positions redundant and creating new positions engaging casual workers, or outsourcing the work to contractors, who normally engaged casual workers on demand.
The scenarios above are real and as a result, the employment rate will improve for a short period until a saturation point is reached. Unfortunately, this point is reached rather quickly and the latest release of unemployment rates for May shows that the rates are to 5.7% nationwide and 5.9% for Victoria, respectively.
In June, the rate may fall slightly again to 5.8%, due to the extra spending in April-May which prompted business operators to put on more casual workers. However the rise will resume thereafter when the government handout is expensed. More obvious rise will occur in September-October when the Federal Government’s First Home Buyers Grant Boosts are reduced to half of the original amounts.
This Christmas retail spending is going to be very bleak, and by February 2010 when all the credit card bills for Christmas spending arrive in the post and Council rates are due, the crunch will hit extremely hard. The casual works will disappear, and unemployment rate soar sky high.