Australians on unemployment benefits fall by 20,000

Since end-2020, the number of Australians relying on unemployment benefits has fallen by 13% as the country continues to recover from the pandemic.
By: | April 30, 2021

The number of Australians receiving unemployment benefits have fallen by almost 20,000 after the nation’s wage subsidy scheme, JobKeeper, ended in March.

As of March 26, there were 1,167,392 people receiving the Jobseeker unemployment benefit, two days before the scheme ended, according to Herald Sun. 

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has said that JobKeeper “had to come to an end because it would have an adverse impact on the labour market”, adding that “the latest labour force figures for the month of March show the Morrison government’s economic plan is working with more Australians in work than ever before”.

“The labour market had strong momentum as JobKeeper reached its conclusion with 70,000 jobs created in March and early indications are that this has continued in April.”

When JobKeeper ended, there were roughly 1.1 million people receiving the benefits. 

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Since end-2020, the number of Australians relying on unemployment benefits has fallen by 13%. As of early April, there were 280,544 people in the state of Victoria receiving the payments, which was down from 413,341 in August 2020.

Australia’s unemployment rate fell to 5.6% in March, down from 5.8% in February, according to official data.