October JobSeeker numbers from DSS Centrelink continued to fall in the Cairns region while remaining modestly above March 2020 levels:

The best way to look at this is as a percentage of the eligible population age group represented here at SA3 level:

These graphs highlight two different things from the same data. The top graph highlights structural and demographic differences between our SA3 regions. The second highlights changes since March 2020 during the pandemic economy. As we can see these are not necessarily the same thing.

There is some consistency between this SA3 data and the SA3 payrolls data in the previous post over the pandemic period. Change at SA2 level since March 2020:

My concern with the data remains that it continues to show the largest declines in the more indigenous areas. I would like to think of this as a positive outcome but would also like to understand why.

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