The Accommodation and food services industry continued to be the most impacted by COVID-19, with a drop of around one in three paid jobs in the industry from mid-March to mid-April, according to new data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today.
The Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages in Australia estimates also showed that between 14 March and 18 April (the five weeks after Australia recorded its 100th confirmed COVID-19 case) total employee jobs decreased by 7.5%, while total wages paid by employers decreased by 8.2%.
Head of Labour Statistics at the ABS, Bjorn Jarvis, said: “The industries which lost the most jobs continued to be Accommodation and food services (-33.4%) and Arts and recreation services (-27.0%).
“Job losses in Accommodation and food services were greatest in South Australia (-39.7%) and Victoria (-35.6%).
“The new data shows that jobs in Accommodation and food services worked by people aged 20-29 and people over 70 decreased the most (-40.8% and -43.7%).”
“Looking at the week-to-week changes, the decrease in the number of jobs in the week ending 18 April was 1.5%, which was larger than the 0.3% decrease in week ending 11 April 2020,” Mr Jarvis said.
Further information is available in Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages in Australia (cat. no. 6160.0.55.001).
The ABS would like to acknowledge the continued support from the Australian Taxation Office in enabling the ABS to produce these statistics, providing weekly insights into the Australian labour market.
Media note
- This release includes information on employee jobs where a payment was made in the reference week through Single Touch Payroll enabled software and reported to the Australian Taxation Office.
- Approximately 99% of substantial employers (those with 20 or more employees) and 71% of small employers (19 or less employees) are currently reporting through Single Touch Payroll. Further information on the release can be found in the explanatory notes.
- Further information on the suite of labour statistics that provide insights into the impact of COVID-19 can be found in Measuring the labour market impacts of COVID-19.
- The additional ABS products being published to understand the economic impact of the coronavirus can be found on the ABS COVID-19 page.
- When reporting ABS data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) must be attributed as the source.
- For media requests and interviews, contact the ABS Media Team on 1300 175 070 (8:30am - 5:00pm Mon-Fri)