Mark Knight's cartoon in the Herald Sun this morning on this topic is excellent.

A picture truly can speak 1,000 words.

Unemployment rate remains the same. Thank God, that makes it easier for Albo to remember.

A literary salad of polispeak and weasel words.

Before the sceptics comment, the method used to produce unemployment figures has not changed, unemployment is heading towards 3.0% and most Australians who want work are able to find jobs, but there is a huge shortage of both unskilled and skilled people seeking employment.

The Building & Construction sector is a perfect example, qualified trades people difficult to find despite very high hourly rates being paid and working week hours of ten a day weekdays, builders labourers are also in short supply. Mining, agriculture, all other areas of employment are struggling to find people to employ to fill job vacancies.

The economy is growing at 3.5% GDP which is the very long term average during past economic growth periods and as former Prime Minster John Howard commented to Paul Murray on Sky News a couple of days ago, the essential economic stimulus funding of employers and employees by the Federal Government during the pandemic crisis lockdowns has resulted in this fast recovery. He said the Treasurer and the Prime Minister discussed it with him before their decision to increase debt to pay for the stimulus package, it was the only way to deal with the crisis.

The ABS defines unemployment thus and of course is laughable for if a person is employed for one hour or more in the defined period that person is deemed to be fully employed:-The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines a person who is unemployed as one who, during a specified reference period, is not employed for one hour or more, is actively seeking work, and is currently available for work. Unemployment is a count of all these people.

Transgender male as a female in female prison, what could go wrong?

Two inmates at all-women's New Jersey jail are PREGNANT after both had sex with transgender prisoners: ACLU won battle to house 27 trans inmates there

It is unclear if the women had sex with the same transgender woman. Edna Mahan houses 27 transgender prisoners, and over 800 cisgender women
The correctional facility began to house inmates by gender identity last year, after reaching a settlement in a lawsuit brought by a trans woman and the ACLU

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10716417/Two-women-female-New-Jersey-prison-PREGNANT-trans-inmates.html

Resounding YES. Dodgy as ####.
Interest Rates up in NZ. The Aussie Lapdog will follow suit.

I would be interested to know if the number of people out of the workforce because of the Omicron variant includes vaccine injuries.

Public housing is a State Government responsibility.

I agree with you that immigrants/refugees being given housing while Australians like you wait for years is wrong.

The reason, that I am not using as an excuse, is International Agreement and United Nations Human Rights Commission and refugee resettlement. Australia has been accepting 13,700 a year chosen and sent via UNHCR, we are third behind USA and Canada, Norway fourth, for numbers of refugee resettled a year. Labor raised the number over 20,000 a year 2007-2013. The Abbott Government reduced the intake.

The UNHCR rules, and the rules of the Charter on Refugees created after WW2 when the UN was established requires nations to treat refugees exactly the same as citizens are treated, for example access to Centrelink welfare payments etc. And provision of housing.

Sadly Australians living below the poverty line are tens of thousands including many young children, and have been for a very long time. Of course a number of them are given housing every year and most receive Centrelink support.

I spent several hours discussing homeless people with a Jesuit Priest about 15 years ago, I am not a Catholic but met him at a wedding, a family member of the bride, and he worked with the homeless in Sydney. He explained that many homeless people prefer that life for various reasons, mental illness is one, and they seek the company of other homeless people, and they look after one another. He said that providing overnight refuge was a problem because they will not move from city and inner suburbs where their friends are and prefer to be.

I trust that you are a Centrelink client, and I sympathise with you.

Dennis, you may be able to explain these figures to me. If we have a 4% unemployment rate, with say 14 million in the workforce, that leaves 560,000 unemployed.

Both parties are claiming that they are going to create jobs for many more...which means we are approaching totally unrealistic unemployed figures. It is impossible to have 100% employment, and you are telling us that there is a shortage of skilled and unskilled workers.

To me, the figures look very rubbery...what am I missing here ? I cannot remember what the unemployment figure was just pre pandemic, but it looks like a pandemic is good for lowering the unemployment figure !

I think you could double the claimed unemployment figure and be a bit closer to the truth.

I'll make a note of this if I ever get threatened with incarceration....sounds like a way to pass the time.

I do not have the figures in front of me Glenn, they are available at government websites.

There are many Australians like me who do not have a job and are self funded retirees or younger and self funded for whatever reason, maybe inheritance or capital gain, lotto win.

There are many who do not want to work but are Centrelink clients, when I lived in QLD I became aware of the Bundaberg seasonal workers situation, farmers depending on foreign tourist backpackers, Childers was a good example of where they boarded in several backpacker hostels and mini-buses took them to the farms every day.

Hope Albasleazy is switched on today!!

They are the variant.

Thought that myself. Now not daily clickbait news.
Now it's Albo gotcha.

Do those foreigner backpackers get paid super and the same rates as locals?

Don't tell us, tell An Al!

As I understand it Cheers they are paid an hourly rate like any casual or contractor.

No SGL (superannuation) or other benefits, the hourly rate is an award based payment.

I have not been employed for over twenty years, I retired at fifty five years of age. But when I was an MD there were several office staffers who were employed as casuals on an hourly rate of pay who declined our offers to make them permanent employees because they wanted the extra money in hand rather than the employee benefits paid as applied for: sick leave, holiday pay, long service leave, superannuation.

In Becoming:

It is that time in the Christian calendar that the hurry and bustle of our ‘work-a-day’ life is set aside for ‘other things’.

Now what are these ‘other things’? If one is tuned to the main-stream media it would seem some of the most important issues in life are:
Work/Employment; Money/Holidays; Covid/Lockdowns, etc, etc. But are they really the most important things in Life?

At such times of the year, we usually come together to celebrate a special meal with our loved ones and friends. In most religions, the meaning of a meal has been the same; the affirmation of man’s accord with the World – in this case I mean Creation; and the meal expressed this accord and man’s participation in a special manner.

And yes, we may be frantically busy in the preparations for these feast days and holy-days, but when the hurry and bustle diminishes it should lead on to this inner source of Leisure.

And, Leisure in its origin from these ‘Celebrations’, was not only the direct contrary of effort; not just the negative, in the sense of being no effort, but the positive counterpart.

Leisure stands opposed to the exclusive ideal of work as a social function. A break in one’s Work, whether of an hour, a day or a week, is still part of the world of Work.

Work is a function: it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It is a link in the chain of utilitarian functions mankind performs.

The present idea of a Pause from Work (weekends, holiday breaks, etc.) is made for the sake of resuming Work and in order to Work, and a man is not only refreshed from Work but for Work.

But, what of Leisure? Leisure is an altogether different matter; it is not on the same plane as Work.

Leisure, like contemplation, is of a higher order than such fundamental human activities as labour, work, and action. No one who looks at leisure simply to restore his working powers will ever discover this Leisure; he will never know the quickening almost as though from some deep sleep, and realises himself to be capable of seeing Life as a World, as a Whole, and that he should full-fill himself, and come to full possession of his faculties, face to face with his being as a whole.

Surely it is in this World of New Ideas we could find answers to problems of today? Don't you think it is The Source that we should be going to?

Looking at this whole, tired, debate of ‘work for work’s sake’ makes me think we should be coming up with better ideas. Where has individual initiative gone? Maybe we are looking at the wrong source?

Question: Can Australians produce enough to feed, clothe and house her population without the need of the whole adult population being employed?

I would think another way to look at it is:

Production: Do we produce enough now?
Distribution: Do we have the infrastructure in place to distribute this production?
Consumption: Maybe this is where the real bottleneck can be found. Do Australian families have enough purchasing power to purchase this production? If not, why not?

I understand Life is more than food and the body more than raiment. A blessed Easter to yourself and your readers Michael.

They have the same rules as they got changed recently, instead of paying per piece to be picked they are now hourly rates which would make it more expensive but not always as the pickers especially the overseas ones were more productive as they were controlling their own wages, apparently Victoria are paying better rates being a Marxist state it is, they are migrating down there and here the orchard owners need pickers.. not sure if they are happy with the changed conditions over wages but they need their fruit off the trees when they are ready..They are paid as casuals and there is usually a hire company that does all the paper work so that the orchadists only deal with the boss of the hire company so the third party as I understand it takes care of that.
The backpackers probably have different rules as it is attached to their working Visa.. they used to be only allowed to earn no more then $10 grand because before Covid that would be when the backpackers would leave after they earned what they were allowed under their Visa..love and light xx

Agree...I cannot fathom how they come up wih the figures given the last two years that they basically prevented circa 10% of the willing workforce, from working.

As we are in an election cycle, I don't believe a word from any of our ruling elite.

Because they get paid too much not to work.

The reason people find it hard to live on is they live beyond there means. They want to live like a king on a paupers wage.

Also too much goes on drugs, grog, or a car.

As bellow he is right unjabbed.

Until We have a Government committed to Re Industrialise this Nation (Foreign Investment Leaseholders are welcome) Oz will forever spin it's wheels.

First problem with that proposal is that we no longer have any wheels to spin.