Today's jobs figures show the Albanese Government has the lowest average unemployment of any government in fifty years at the same time as inflation is down and wages are up.
56,300 jobs were created in the last month alone with 14,584,400 Australians in employment - a record high.
This strong level of job creation has occurred at the same time as we make substantial progress in bringing down inflation.
Encouragingly, full-time positions rose by 299,000 in 2024 - 67 percent of all jobs growth over the year.
A record 6,956,700 women were in employment in December 2024, up by 190,300 (3 percent) over the year.
The vast majority of growth in women's jobs over the year have been full-time - 84 percent of all new women's jobs - with the number of women in full-time work reaching a record high of 3,967,800.
Over 1.1 million new jobs have been created under the Albanese Labor Government during the past two and a half years - a record in a single parliamentary term for an Australian government of any political persuasion.
59 percent of jobs growth since May 2022 has been in full-time positions.
In addition, the Albanese Government has created more jobs in the market sector than any first term government in recorded history.
While the unemployment rate edged up to 4 per cent in December, this occurred in conjunction with a rise in the participation rate, to an equal record high of 67.1 percent.
In addition, the employment to population ratio increased to a record high of 64.5 percent in December 2024.
Under our Government, inflation has more than halved, while more Australians have a job, and their wages are going up.
This is a direct result of Labor's responsible economic management and our changes to workplace laws.
Our workplace laws - all of which were opposed by Peter Dutton and the Coalition - are delivering:
- Higher pay and stronger job security for workers;
- Real wage growth after a decade of deliberate wage suppression under the Coalition, with the average Australian worker now earning an extra $150 a week compared to 2 years ago;
- Real wages growth for four consecutive quarters, a complete turnaround from when we came to Government when annual real wages were falling;
- Increases to minimum and award wages, meaning that the 2.6 million lowest paid workers are better off;
- The lowest gender pay gap level in history;
- Same Job Same Pay laws delivering significant pay rises to labour hire workers;
- New rights for truck drivers to stay safe on our roads;
- New rights for gig economy workers like rideshare and food delivery workers, including unfair dismissal;
- More rights for casual workers;
- The right to say 'no' to unpaid overtime, through our Right to Disconnect;
- The criminalisation of intentional wage theft.
Quotes attributable to Treasurer Jim Chalmers:
Today's jobs figures show the Albanese Government has the lowest average unemployment of any government in fifty years at the same time as inflation is down and wages are up.
We've shown you can make progress on inflation without sacrificing jobs.
Inflation is down, wages are up, unemployment is low and more than a million jobs have been created under a Labor government.
While unemployment has ticked up slightly to 4.0 per cent in these figures, we've been able to preserve many of the gains we've made in our labour market.
This is what a soft landing in our economy looks like.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Murray Watt:
Every single job that has been created under Labor is important to help Australians with cost of living pressures.
We know people are still doing it tough, but we also know that people would be doing it tougher under Peter Dutton.
The Albanese Government has been creating jobs, getting wages moving again and rolling out cost-of-living help, all of which Peter Dutton has opposed.
Now, with the election approaching, he's promised to unwind our workplace laws, which will send wages backwards.
Australians can't risk Peter Dutton's pay cuts
