Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Minister for Industry

Thursday 8th July 2010

Unemployment in Tasmania Highest in the Nation

In a week of bad news for the Tasmanian economy, with business and consumer confidence falling, Tasmania tops the national unemployment rate.

Tasmania's unemployment rate is 6.3% on trend terms, well in front of the national average of 5.2%.

While the Premier and Deputy Premier continue to talk about their 15,000 jobs target, the fact is there were 338 more people unemployed last month than in May and over 1,100 more people have joined the jobless queue since the election. We know that private investment has plummeted over the last twelve months putting at risk the opportunity for jobs growth in the coming year.

Just about every other state or territory saw unemployment peak last year, while Tasmania's unemployment rate has risen just about every month since August 2008.

In this year's budget there was no economic development plan, no industry plan, and no jobs plan.

Rather than focusing on plans for the future, the Labor-Green Government appears to be bogged down by the very inertia and inaction that Mr Bartlett warned about prior to the election.