Cash News
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has defended Labor’s role in the recent employment figures as the growth of government-funded roles, particularly in care, have dampened hopes of a rate cut anytime soon.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday revealed the unemployment rate remained at 4.1 per cent during the September month with an additional 64,100 jobs entering the economy.
Markets pushed back against Thursday’s revelation, as the ASX’s RBA Rate Indicator lowered the chance of a rate cut at the bank’s next meeting by four points to 10 per cent.
Ms Gallagher was pressed on the recent figures and a claim by shadow employment minister Michaelia Cash that Labor-funded growth in public sector jobs was “not sustainable”.
“I saw that claim from Senator Cash saying that it’s all public servant and when you look a bit deeper it’s certainly jobs that are in the care economy – so you see that in health and education – but also more broadly across the care economy,” the Finance Minister told Sunday Agenda host Andrew Clennell.
“That’s, I think, a very good outcome too so it’s not just what I think Michaelia Cash would like to demonise, as public servants, it’s a much broader scope of jobs being created and that’s a good thing too because we have a lot of shortages in the care economy sector.
“If we’re seeing jobs created and people taking those positions that’s a great result.”
Clennell then pressed the Finance Minister on whether the care economy was propping up the economy, to which Ms Gallagher defended investment in the sector.
“When you look at some of the jobs that are being created, and the services side of the economy is an important side of our labour market – we need people in aged care, in disability in early education and care,” Ms Gallagher said.
“We have been, and state government’s have been as well as Commonwealth, looking at how you resource the public sector properly. When you look at schools and hospitals and places like that, these are critical workers in critical jobs and I don’t think they should be demonised for being in that category of worker.”
After the jobs figures came to light, Ms Cash pointed the finger at Labor’s spending.
“The private sector is growing at a much slower rate than the public sector. This is not sustainable,” Senator Cash wrote in a statement.
“The Albanese Government is all about increasing the size of the public sector, whilst attacking the private sector with red tape and uncertainty.”
About 70 per cent of the jobs created in the 12 months to August were non-market jobs, which includes health, education and the public sector.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers hit back against Ms Cash’s criticism of government spending in the jobs sector on Friday when speaking with ABC Radio National.
“There’s a real snobbiness at the core of that critique, which says that if you work in the care economy, that’s not a real job,” Mr Chalmers said.
“It is a real job, we value it, we are paying people appropriately, and that’s the truth.”