Lockdown knock-down: Queensland jobs hit harder than Victoria
One of the bigger impacts of the lockdowns in southern states has been the loss of payrolls in Queensland, despite being relatively free of restrictions.
Job advertisements have started to fall (Photo: ABC)
In fact, Queensland took a bigger hit to payrolls in August than Victoria where most of the state has been in lockdown for weeks.
For the month of August NSW payrolls were down 5 per cent, Victoria was down 1.7 per cent and Queensland was down 1.9 per cent.
Similarly, Property Council data released this week showed on some days less than half of the Brisbane’s CBD offices were occupied.
Westpac economist Justin Smirk said it was a surprising result.
“The state numbers are very interesting, highlighting greater than expected weakness in Queensland while better than expected outcome in Victoria,’’ he said.
“It is very surprising that the hit to Queensland payrolls was larger than Victoria both in the fortnight and in the month.
“We will have to check there is not some seasonality here driving this outcome but for now it looks as if the NSW lockdown, and the local short lockdowns in Queensland, have had a bigger impact than expected.’’
Conus Consultancy economist Pete Faulkner said it was perplexing and said it could be the base effect – essentially Queensland has done so much better and had further to fall than Victoria.
But he said it could also be the flow-on from the lockdowns down south through the loss of trade and tourism.
Faulkner said a similar result had occurred in Cairns where there had been a dramatic fall in mobility following its three-day lockdown.
He said mobility fell 10 per cent below pre-COVID levels and is still down despite it not being under restrictions.
“Everyone up here is saying: We are not locked down, but we are locked out,’’ he said.
