Fresh JobSeeker figures for July (unemployment benefits statistics) have arrived this week. There were 21,039 Central Coast residents registered for JobSeeker through CentreLink at the end of July, a slight reduction from June that had 21,056 registrations.
The divisions with the greatest increase in JobSeeker payments were Jilliby-Yarramalong and Killcare-MacMasters beach.
The Umina-Booker Bay-Patonga division had the highest absolute number with 1834 registered residents followed by the Gorokan-Kanwal-Charmhaven division with 1757 registrations.
Data analytics firm See-Change in Gosford has conducted a breakdown of the major figures and baked them in to current trends.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that the jobseeker numbers are significantly higher than the unemployment data: Labour Force data suggests 7,630 unemployed on the Central Coast, yet jobseeker data shows 23,956 recipients of jobseeker and youth allowance benefits.
Also unemployment data suggests a decrease of around 800 unemployed between June and July, however the corresponding decrease in jobseekers plus youth allowance is only 94.
With such confusing datasets it’s challenging to understand the true state of the local labour market.
Source: See-Change Data Analytics & David Abrahams