Ten thousand locals receive JobSeeker benefits unemployment benefits after COVID-19 downturn

An additional 3205 people have been forced onto JobSeeker since December 2019, the analysis shows.

In May 9764 residents of the Division of New England were receiving the $1,115.70 benefit fortnightly.

A total of 11,508 locals were receiving JobSeeker or Youth Allowance; which is one in ten people in our division.

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The PBO Statistical Snapshot, released this week, adds to horror economic figures released last week, which revealed one in five people in the electorate receive JobKeeper. The wage supplement scheme pays nearly $30 million a fortnight to 19,780 employed local residents.

But the numbers are even worse in the neighboring Division of Parkes, which includes the towns of Gunnedah, Narrabri and Moree.

With 7.8 per cent of the working age population of the electorate receiving income support even before the crisis, the electorate had the tenth highest proportion of residents aged 15-64 on benefits in the country.

That number has increased dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In December 2019 some 7480 residents of the Parkes electorate had been on Newstart or Sickness Allowance. In May 2020 that number had increased to 10,361 on JobSeeker.

Proportionately, the rural electorates have had relatively smaller increases in unemployment, because they had relatively high rates of unemployment before the coronavirus crisis, according to the PBO analysis.

In the Queensland electorate of Moncrieff 9086 extra people needed government help in May than did last year, in the worst downturn in the country.

Over 1.6 million Australians were on unemployment benefits in May, a rate that has doubled since last year.

JobSeeker was doubled from late April, but is scheduled to be halved again in September.

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