17/07/2025
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported today that Australia's unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in June, the highest rate since November 2021.
While most economists are focused on how this reflects on the Reserve Bank’s decision to hold interest rates earlier this month, for the 639,500 people who are officially unemployed in Australia, this news is salt in the wound of poverty.
We have two media-trained spokespeople available for interviews:
Hayden Patterson is a welfare advocate and the former president of the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union. His topline comments are:
Economists and politicians are eager to claim that an unemployment rate of 4 to 5 per cent represents full employment. Of course this is ridiculous, especially if you’re one of the unemployed or underemployed Australians battling cost of living pressures. Income support payments are not sufficient to cover the basics like rent, food and health care.
In June, the number of unemployed surged by 34,000 while the number of people with full-time jobs fell by 38,000. This proves what we already know: that unemployment is a structural issue and a deliberate outcome of the government’s economic policy. Yet welfare recipients are consistently demonised as though poverty is an individual failing.
In the past 5 years, I’ve been homeless three times. This is an increasingly common experience for those living on the poverty line as both state and federal governments neglect their responsibilities to provide social security and housing services.
Please contact me to arrange a booking with Yatha or Hayden.
Thank you,
Jinghua Qian (they/them)
0480 618 310
[email protected]
