Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has admitted that the effective unemployment rate of Australia currently stands at 13.3 %, which is almost double of the official rate, i.e. 7.1%.
The official unemployment only takes into account only officially jobless people. At the same time, the effective rate further adds persons who are working zero hours and the ones who left the labour force too.
The Australian job loss scenario is worst affected by the COVID pandemic. The whole world is facing the same scenes. In Australia, the number of unemployed people was 600,000 in April, and 227,700 further added in May.
The treasury estimated the unemployment rate to be 10% for this quarter. The Job Seekers program in Australia provides the wage subsidy to the employers to assure the minimum pay to workers. However, a number of people have reduced their number of hours to zero on the platform.
Josh is due to speak further on it on 23rd July and would suggest the measures to tackle the situation. As per Frydenberg, there would be a second wave of income support in the program.