VICTORIA is taking the brunt of Australia's job losses. Official figures show a net 33,000 full-time jobs have been lost since April, equivalent to one in every 60 full-time positions in the state
.
Yesterday's bleak jobs data came as Qantas foreshadowed hundreds of job cuts and the possible
closure of one of its two heavy maintenance depots at Avalon and Tullamarine, which together employ more than 1000 people.
Nationally, the jobs figures have gone back to a zig-zag pattern. On a seasonally adjusted estimate, the Bureau of Statistics says Australia gained 46,000 jobs in January, after losing 41,000 in the previous two months.
Seasonally adjusted, unemployment edged down to 5.1 per cent, but the bureau's figures show the big movement has been of people leaving the workforce altogether. In the past year, while unemployment has risen only marginally, the workforce participation rate has fallen by the equivalent of over 100,000 workers.
Roughly half of those lost workers were in Victoria, where the seasonally adjusted figures reported another 15,000 full-time jobs lost in January.
The bureau figures show a tale of two economies.
In the past year Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have added 44,000 full-time jobs, while the south-eastern states have lost 38,000 full-time jobs.