Where joblessness keeps growing

  • Mike Steketee

16 January 2011In the 27 years that Australia's population rose by 44 per cent, the numbers on a disability pension went up by 250 per cent, writes Mike Steketee in the Australian

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IT'S not only the weather that keeps reminding us of the old saw about Australia as a land of contrasts.

On Thursday, the unemployment rate fell to 5 per cent, down from 5.6 per cent a year earlier, and continuing the long-term trend downwards. In 1999, almost 630,000 people were receiving the Newstart allowance, the main unemployment benefit. By 2008, this had fallen to just under 400,000. The global financial crisis and the recession we almost had sent this back up to 572,000 at the start of last year, but it had fallen to 539,000 by last month…

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