56,000 people lost jobs after Australia ended JobKeeper

Some 56,000 Australians have lost their jobs in the month after JobKeeper, the nation’s wage subsidy programme was halted, according to Australia’s Treasury.

Payroll data provided to the tax office suggested that about 56,000 former workers on JobKeeper lost their jobs in the first four weeks after the wage subsidy ended in March, said Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy.

But “while there have been some job losses associated with the end of the programme and there may be more in the future, the strength of the broader labour market has meant that many of these individuals are finding jobs,” he said.

“In terms of the net labour market impact, it’s worth remembering that around 400,000 people move into and out of employment in a normal month and we would expect many of those who lost employment at the end of JobKeeper to regain employment in coming weeks,” he added.

READ: Australia’s unemployment rate in April falls to 5.5%

To that end, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has indicated that the end of the JobKeeper wage subsidy “did not have a discernible impact on employment between March and April and that changes could reflect usual month-to-month variation in the labour market and some larger than usual seasonal changes around Easter and school holidays”, Kennedy said.