The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday reported the national jobless rate tumbled by 0.4 percentage points in June. At 3.5 per cent, unemployment is at its lowest since August 1974 when it was 2.7 per cent.

Oliver Peterson spoke to Shane Wright, Senior Economics Writer at The Age and Sydney Morning Herald to discuss how our jobless rate can drop to an all-time low, whilst the number of people within the job market is the highest on record.

“No one was expecting such a low rate, such a lift in employment and the fall in the number of people out of work,” he told Oly.

“This is telling us that the job market nationally is exceptionally tight, which should translate into higher wages. Higher wages contributes to inflation, which is already going up.”

Press PLAY to hear more on Shane Wright’s perspective

On Perth Live, Oly further investigated what the realities are behind these statistics and how managers are planning to juggle current and future staffing issues.

Tim Buckton, General Manager at Emily Taylor, told Oly that it has been incredibly tough to recruit and retain staff in the past six months.

“It’s a double whammy, we’ve got a shortage of staff and on top of that they’ve all contracted Covid,” Mr Buckton said.

“We’ve been putting job adverts up, you get a few applications but a lot of them are from overseas. Some quality applications do come in but they know their value so they’re asking $20-$30 above on wages.”

 Press PLAY to hear more perspectives from industry managers at PWD, Bannister Downs Dairy and Scotford Fennessy