Although state and federal payments to workers and small businesses for lost income were boosted in July, the current patchwork of payment schemes exclude many, for example, all those who are receiving welfare payments, who are consequently struggling to survive.
The number of unemployed in Sydney swelled by 300,000 over recent weeks, while casual workers’ shifts in the hospitality industry were cut by two-thirds. Yet in some ways, these workers may be grateful to have a job. Since many of these workplaces are essential, this limits the efficacy of the lockdown, which has no end in sight. During Sydney’s current lockdown, one in ten infected residents caught the coronavirus at work. Suggested reading Sage scientist: Don't rule out more delaysĪfter all, someone has to leave their home to ensure the taps don’t run dry, clean Covid exposure sites, stock supermarket shelves and collect the rubbish. While elites and professionals settled back into their domestic bubbles, many lower paid and blue-collar workers carried on as before or bore the brunt of the economic fallout. The recent wave of lockdowns impacting Australia’s biggest cities has upended Australia’s fragile recovery, however, causing economic activity to contract by an estimated $13bn in the September quarter alone. Australia’s billionaires had doubled their wealth during the pandemic’s first year.įor a time, economic growth resumed and unemployment dipped to 5%, though 60% of all new jobs were casual or part-time. Most striking, however, has been the transfer of wealth to the richest of the rich. Similarly, property prices in Australia rose 16.1% in the 12 months to July 2021, and the share market reached its highest-ever level on 10 August 2021, with the gains accruing mainly at the top.
Their additional income was funnelled into investments, growing household wealth. As saving rates shot up last year, reaching an average 22% in Australia - the highest in 60 years - richer households again benefited disproportionately. Higher income households have also saved a higher proportion of their income. While incomes in the worst-affected industries more than halved, in the least affected industries they remained unchanged. Throughout the country, the industries worst affected by Covid-19 were twice as likely to employ workers with less than high-school qualifications. While the Government’s main support schemes, JobKeeper and JobSeeker, wound up earlier this year, elite and middle-class incomes have continued to grow during the cycle of lockdowns, increasing already yawning gaps. Suggested reading Who will make the case for liberty? And nowhere has this been demonstrated more clearly than in Australia. It is by now well-documented that the pandemic’s impacts have widely diverged along the fault-lines of pre-existing social divides, often deepening disadvantage. Consequently, their interests and worldviews have shaped the framing of the pandemic and responses to it. The same social classes also dominate politics, since today’s professionalised political parties are only weakly linked to their erstwhile social foundations.
Australia lockdown rules professional#
Lockdowns’ worst effects have not been felt by Australia’s elites, including the professional middle classes, who dominate the higher echelons of the bureaucracy, the media and the academy. How has lockdown become so acceptable in Australia, a country where the seven-day average for Covid-19 deaths sits at just two? The answer, I suspect, is because its impacts are not equally shared. Relief for beleaguered Australians is therefore months away, even under the most optimistic scenario. At present, however, thanks to a shortage of Pfizer jabs - combined with mixed messages from the Government and health officials regarding the safety and efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine - only 20% of Australia’s adult population is fully vaccinated (compared to 75% in the UK). According to the plan, lockdowns will no longer be required when 70% of Australia’s adult population is vaccinated, and borders will reopen when 80% of adults are vaccinated. And so Australians are left with one question on their lips: when will this end? The bleak answer, at least according to the Government’s pandemic exit strategy, is not anytime soon.
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