It’s certainly a conundrum – how can long-term unemployment be so high when we also have a shortage of workers?
Job-seekers in the Far west and Orana (which includes the Western Plains along with Dubbo and Broken Hill) are taking up to two years to find work, according to new figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The 132-week average for a job seeker to find work across the regions is the longest average since 2017. The average job seeker period in NSW is 13 weeks.
However, the new data also shows the percentage of unemployed people at 1.3% in the region – lower than the state average of 3%, which is lower than the national unemployment rate of 3.7.
Which leads to the question – how can unemployment be dropping, but the amount of time job-seekers are taking to find work increasing?…