NEW statistics have revealed women across the state in the past month have lost their jobs faster than men, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Women's payroll jobs as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics dropped by 0.5 per cent in NSW in the month between June 27 and July 26. Meanwhile, men's payroll jobs dropped by 0.3 per cent in the same period.
Tamworth Business Chamber president Jye Segboer said workers needed more support to ride out the economic storm.
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"I think the scary thing now is all the border closures because more businesses are going to feel the impact in the coming weeks," Mr Segboer said.
"In my opinion, I think that will probably lead to more job losses, because while those borders remain closed, the tourism, travel and hospitality sectors suffer, which will have a flow-on effect to other businesses.
"I think it is time the state and federal governments provided some stronger support to businesses, because JobKeeper is only just keeping people employed, it's not helping to counteract those losses of income."
Parent and childhood activist group The Parenthood is warning the job losses could lead to a "pink recession".
The Parenthood executive director Georgie Dent said supporting the childcare sector could be the key to turning around the job losses for women.
"One of the best ways of increasing women's participation in the workforce and solving the pink recession is providing quality, affordable early learning education and childcare," Ms Dent said.
"These figures are the continuation of a dangerous trend and we know that simultaneously women are carrying an increased load of unpaid work at home as they navigate lockdown and home schooling.
"A pink recession threatens to undo 30 years of progress and relegate a new generation of Australian women into life-long economic insecurity and poverty."
Mr Segboer said more childcare assistance could encourage more people to join the workforce.
"I think the childcare scheme the government had in place was working really well to help ensure people could get back to work and not have that burden of having that childcare payment," he said.
"It seems that since it was pulled, a lot of people have chosen to either leave their work or restrict their hours of availability because of the simple cost of childcare being too high.
"In some cases, people often have to weigh up if it is affordable for them to send their child to childcare, because it's often the case that sending their child to childcare would cost more than they would earn in a day."
Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
