The author has overlooked a glaring anomaly in the unemployment statistics, and based an argument for non Government intervention into unemployment.
What is it?

Anyone who has done Economics 101 will already know what Joe Branigan says. Anyone who has paid even the most cursory attention to the news will know that whenever employment figures show a rise politicians will claim to have 'created jobs'. They never of course claim credit for the converse, which immediately proves the nonsense of their ‘created jobs’ mantra. But in the end this is a simple argument between right and left, with both sides sincerely (I hope) believing in the truth of their arguments. In a rational world, governments would do the obvious and totally deregulate the labour market. But in our kind of polarised society we just have to rely on luck to drive economic growth – weather, global prices, wars, how the big global economies are travelling, etc. So let’s all cross our fingers, together.

Tombee.

I get a bit over this vacious argument that the economy will be saved, and all will live happily ever after, by simply deregulating the labour market.

And when, just supposing we do, Australia is chockas with Chinese Coolies working for two bob and a dog biscuit, and we obligingly make short legged, slanty eyed Aussies out of them, what then?

Creating jobs is best done by the private sector,which ought to include cooperatives?

They're assisted in that endeavor by genuine tax reform, simplification, harmonized laws and less red tape! Unfair dismissals need to be junked and doable in return for a more realistic job start allowance?

Which could just max out in say six months, with compulsory military service the only remaining option after that time? Alan B.

Why do we keep hearing this mantra of "we need to keep improving our standard of living". Our standard of living is already higher than we can afford and that is what is driving both the individual and state debt. Today's population isn't happier than the previous generation, in fact the converse applies. Credit is too easy to get, we are getting lazy, we want instant gratification. We already spend too much of our resources on grog, cigarettes, pokies and other forms of gambling. When are we going to wake up and stop blaming the governments for all our ills.

There isn't a shortage of jobs out there. Too many people are working longer hours to pay for their excesses, when those hours could be taken up by those who really need them.

David

We are living beyond our means. Our standard of living can be maintained only through credit. People on the dole can have luxury items that middle class people had to save for not long ago. There is now talk of the interest rate being further reduced: more cheap credit for the wastrels, and less income for people living within their means, on their own recources. How does that make sense? People are unemployed because they have priced themselves out of the market,and governments have assisted them by seeing to it they they can still have the toys they desire from low-wage countries, paid for with increasing credit and welfare. Welfare recipients in Australia get as much money as people in China and Bangladesh get for working long hours in sweatshops to provide our bludgers with their desires. Decent migrants, with the skills and the will to contribute to Australia's wealth no longer want to come here. Instead, we now have 'refugees', 80% of whom never get a job, but live better than they ever have on our welfare and handouts. The placed is stuffed.

Tombee,
"Anyone who has done Economics 101 will already know what Joe Branigan says."
Then the Economics 101 course should be revised to remove the misinformation.
Anyone with a decent understanding of economics will already know what Joe Branigan says is false.

When a government invests in a new road, it DOESN'T mean that the taxpayer has less money to spend on goods and services, as the taxpayer could simply borrow more. Saving doesn't create any jobs in the private sector, and private sector investment is demand driven not supply driven, so changes in public sector saving/borrowing and financial investment don't directly affect employment, but they enable changes in taxation and spending which do.

The natural rate of unemployment is about 2% in all areas. Politicians (and indeed economists) usually fail to properly account for the regional variations in unemployment rate and instead use the average, giving perverse results. But the claim that we're already within 0.05% of the natural rate, despite inflation having fallen below zero last quarter, is utterly ridiculous.

Deregulating the labour market is one solution, but it would leave many workers much worse off. There are other solutions that would give much better outcomes.

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VK3AUU, living standards are rising far more slowly than they should be, as the benefits of technological improvement flow disproportionally to those who are already rich.

There's nothing wrong with seeking to improve your standard of living.

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ttbn, if you disregard artificial financial constraints, you'll find we're living below our means.

Lower interest rates make sense because they enable businesses to profitably invest in things that make them more productive, and they reduce the short term bias of business decisions.

People are unemployed because demand is low, so businesses can't be confident of making money employing them.

Where did you get the absurd idea that 80% of refugees will never get a job?

Aidan.
I would suggest that it is morally wrong with seeking to improve your standard of living if the longer hours that you are working is taking away the job of someone who really needs it. Also if your improved standard of living is being supported by an unserviceable debt, which almost seems to be the norm these days, then you are being irresponsible. That includes most Labor governments.

David

A quick refresher course in how to create jobs.

Unsign the The Lima Declaration which transfers the manufacturing industry out of Australia.

Unsign the Trans Pacific Partnership which makes the world’s biggest corporations immune from prosecution because they can argue in their own private courts that anyone who takes them to court is interfering with their business and is therefore restraining trade.

The private TPP court in all likelyhood would order the government to cease and desist or sue or fine the government as punishment for restraining or interfering with trade.

Your politicians have effectively appointed the TPP a government above your government people because never again will an Australian govt make any law of any significance without first getting it cleared by the TPP.

Funny how national debt is never ascribed to:

Corporate welfare
the absence of a tax on share trades
tax evasion by the rich, ah la the Panama papers
the war industry
the spying and surveillance industry
low rates of company tax when these simple changes could be made to tax law:

Put all accounts of all companies on public record
Put all beneficial ownership of companies on public record, proven by a requirement that banks confirm the beneficial ownership of companies they provide services to.
Put directorships on public record
Force trusts to be on public record.

provide our bludgers with their desires.

Posted by ttbn, Thursday, 28 April 2016 10:57:31 AM

The media has certainly trained you up to have the views their owners want us all to have, dear me.

Perhaps you might be so kind enough to explain why you appear perceive that welfare for individuals is a bad thing?

In 2008 I was given $800 by my govt and told to go spend it and stimulate the economy. Quite clearly our govt sees that spending $xm or $xb, whatever, into the economy each fortnight by bouncing it straight through the bank accounts of the old, the sick and the unemployed and straight into the economy, in every community in Australia, is a good thing?

I have every confidence that you are well aware of and know this so I'm wondering why you think its a bad thing. Imagine what would happen to your job or your business, if those $m or $b were to cease over night? Take your local shopping centre, have you every wondered many many business and jobs in that place owe their existance to that economic stimulus each fortnight?

I'm also wondering why you, and thousands of others, don't ask why govt gave the banks the right to be sole creators of money out of thin air when the govt could have reserved for the people of Australia, through itself, the right to create money out of thin air just like the banks do, using the exact same method as the banks use?

I'm sure your aware that the tax we pay is merely the interest the govt now has to pay the banks because the govt can no longer create for itself the money it needs to stimulate the economy each fortnight like it did when Australia got built from about the late 1940's through to about the mid 1970's.

Think of how all that infrastructure cropped up in Australia during those years without the taxpayer owned Commonwealth bank creating for them?

VK3AUU,
"I would suggest that it is morally wrong with seeking to improve your standard of living if the longer hours that you are working is taking away the job of someone who really needs it."
But the supply of jobs is not fixed.

"Also if your improved standard of living is being supported by an unserviceable debt, which almost seems to be the norm these days, then you are being irresponsible. That includes most Labor governments."
The debt is very easily serviceable. The nation is financially sovereign and doesn't borrow in currencies other than the one it prints, so it can always afford to meet its financial obligations regardless of the size of the debt.

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Referundemdrivensocienty,

"Unsign the The Lima Declaration which transfers the manufacturing industry out of Australia."
The Lima Declaration no longer has any effect on Australian policy. Indeed Australia is no longer even a member of UNIDO, having withdrawn in 1997. We've largely left it to the markets to decide where manufacturing goes. As indeed we should.

There isn't much corporate welfare in Australia, and the car industry which relied heavily on it is preparing to leave. But what governments have failed to do is create an attractive environment for all businesses.

Share trading shouldn't be taxed. We should tax profits, not turnover.

Banks lend money, and lending money increases the money supply. But the government (through the RBA) can still do that and a lot more besides.

"I'm sure your aware that the tax we pay is merely the interest the govt now has to pay the banks"
That is completely false...

"because the govt can no longer create for itself the money it needs to stimulate the economy each fortnight like it did when Australia got built from about the late 1940's through to about the mid 1970's. "
...and so is that. The government's ability to create money has not diminished, but nowadays it's far more likely to choose not to.

Share trading shouldn't be taxed. We should tax profits, not turnover.

Same thing with my wages then too then a? we should only tax that portion of my wage that is my profit at the end of the year, not that portion of my wage that is spent on expenses throughout the year!!

"Same thing with my wages then too then a? we should only tax that portion of my wage that is my profit at the end of the year, not that portion of my wage that is spent on expenses throughout the year!!"

Referundemdrivensocienty, a lot of things are tax deductable for that very reason.

If you're referring to personal expenses, it's not reaaly possible to separate them from discretionary purchases, so instead the first few thousand dollars you earn aren't taxed.

That's only how the govt and tx office see it. I see it differently and fair's fair, if business only expects to pay tax on their profits, the same principle of taxation should also apply to wage and salary earners.

The expenses I incur are still expenses and many costs business expends are not always business related either

Perhaps the cost of buying, running and maintaining cars should also be deductible in the same way a business persons vehicle is deductible.

The desire for separatism is also driven by people being sick and tired of bloated socialist bureaucracies dreaming up new ways to control the minutiae of their lives.