The treasurer is spruiking a strong jobs market as it concludes its first year in office.
Treasury analysis of jobs data shows 333,000 more Australians were employed in April 2023 compared to when Labor took office in May 2022.
The second time this occurred was under the Labor Rudd government, with just under 200,000 new jobs, and the third was Whitlam, with 161,500.
Although the treasury analysis doesn’t include change of leaders, including the first years of the Keating, Gillard, Turnbull and Morrison governments after their election wins.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has also seized on record high female employment, with an extra 21,400 women employed full-time in April and almost 224,000 more since a year ago.
Female unemployment has dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest since 1973.
“This government is all about building an economy that delivers more opportunities for more people in more parts of our country, and central to that is creating more secure, well-paid jobs,” Chalmers said.
Almost two-thirds of jobs recorded a higher wage rise than the year before in the year to the March quarter of 2023.
But the opposition has been critical of the Albanese government’s back-slapping, saying it’s seized on the strong economic circumstances left by the previous coalition government, which saw unemployment tracking down.
“If you look at how Australians are feeling after that first 12 months, there’s not a lot of confidence,” Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie told Sky News on Sunday.
“Your mortgages have gone up, energy prices were supposed to come down under Labor, they’ve gone up by 32 percent.
“So that is the real impact of the lack of hard decision-making by the Labor Party.”
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has chastised the government for overseeing a decline in real wages as raises fail to keep up with inflation.
He says small businesses are struggling to keep employees and find workers, while families are struggling to keep up with the cost of living following consecutive interest rate hikes.
