Chief Economist at IFM Investors, Alex Joiner, has dissected the latest quarterly ABS Labour Account, which shows that the loss of migrant workers is unambiguously benefitting Australian workers.
As illustrated in the next chart, the labour account data implies there were almost 200,000 less people employed in Australia in Q2 than before the pandemic. This was driven by a 344,000 decline in non-resident workers:
Big fall in temporary migrant workers.
Accordingly, the number of Australians employed rose above pre-pandemic levels (as measured by the ABS labour force survey) even though total jobs (as measured in the ABS labour account) was lower:
Australians getting more jobs.
Obviously, rebooting mass immigration post-pandemic will reverse these outcomes and crowd-out Australian workers. So why do it?
