Job recovery may be slowing as border closures have tightened: Frydenberg

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

More than half of the 1.3 million people who lost their jobs or were stood down on zero hours at the start of the pandemic had started some form of work by July, according to figures released by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

Treasury figures show the national effective unemployment rate at 9.9% in July, compared with a peak of 14.9% in April, with 689,000 gaining effective employment. The official July unemployment rate was 7.5%.

Excluding Victoria – which is in full lockdown combatting a second COVID wave – the national effective unemployment rate would be 9.5%.

The effective unemployment rate includes the jobless looking for work, those who are employed but on zero hours, and those who have left the labour force since March.

Frydenberg said Victoria was a setback however “the jobs recovery across the rest of the country gives cause for optimism”.

But he warned, “high frequency data is showing signs that the jobs recovery may be slowing as state border closures have been tightened.”

The effective unemployment rate is expected to increase above 13% with a rise of about 450,000 effectively unemployed over August and September compared to July. Most will be in Victoria.

The effective unemployment rate is lowest in the ACT (5.2%), Tasmania (7.9%) and NSW (8.5%) and highest in the NT (12.1%), Queensland (11.4%) and Victoria (10.5%). South Australia and Western Australia are both at 9.8%.

NSW has had the strongest recovery with 315,000 people gaining effective employment since April. This is 46% of total effective employment, and compares with NSW’s 32% of the country’s population.

NSW has supported the federal government’s argument for open borders, although its border with Victoria has been shut in light of Victoria’s second wave.

In July, nearly half of those who were employed but working zero hours for economic reasons were from Victoria. This contrasts with April, when only 30% of zero hour workers were in Victoria and about 35% in NSW.

Outside Victoria, the number of people on unemployment benefits is about 3% below the May peak. In Victoria it is 3.8% above its previous peak in May, after a 6.3% rise since the end of June.

By mid August, the number on unemployment benefits had fallen by 22,800 from the May peak, despite an increase of 14,900 in Victoria.

The fortnight parliamentary session beginning Monday will have as the main legislation before it the extension of the JobKeeper scheme and the Coronavirus supplement beyond the end of September. Each would be scaled down.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

PAKISTAN: TALIBAN BOMBS CATHOLIC GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL

Blast claims no victims but reflects radical Islam’s tightened grip.

ISTANBUL, October 14 (Compass Direct News) – Taliban militants bombed a Catholic-run girls’ school in Pakistan’s war-torn Swat Valley as part of a larger effort to subvert women’s status in society through Islamic law, locals say.

On Wednesday (Oct. 8) the Islamic terrorist group bombed the Convent Girls’ School in Sangota, run by the Presentation Sisters, a Catholic religious order that has opened girls’ schools around the world. Militants have threatened the school frequently for offering education to females.

No one was injured in the attack. The school had closed a few months earlier due to deteriorating security in Swat, a source told Compass. Students and faculty left in July following threats.

“The Taliban said, ‘We have asked you so many times to close down the school but you are not listening. We are going to set it on fire,’” said Yousef Benjamin, a Lahore-based peace activist.

Militants had already attacked or blown up and forced the closure of many girls’ schools in Swat, said Cecil Chaudhry, executive secretary of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance. They told the nuns they would destroy their school if it weren’t closed. Following the bombing the militants ransacked the school’s adjoining convent.

The high school enrolled approximately 1,000 female students, nearly 95 percent of them Muslim.

The Santoga school has faced threats from Islamic extremists before. It closed its doors in September 2007 after received a threatening letter from extremists that demanded all teachers and female students wear the burqa. The letter claimed the faculty was working to convert Muslim students to Christianity.

The Taliban has not singled out the school for its Christian ties but instead wants to clamp down on all girls’ schools, which they believe encourage female participation in society, government officials claim.

In the last two years it has indiscriminately targeted more than 150 public and private girls’ schools in northwest Pakistan.

“For them it doesn’t matter if it’s a Christian school, government school or a private school,” Benjamin said. “Last week I was in [the northern city of] Peshawer and the Taliban told women to not even go to the market.”

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1994 to 2001. They severely curtailed women’s rights, barring females from education, employment or traveling outside of their homes without a male relative.

“A few years ago the Taliban government in Afghanistan did not even allow women to be seen outside their houses, and that’s the version of Islam the Taliban promotes,” Chaudhry said.

Located near the Afghanistan border, Swat has been a flash point between the country’s security forces and Islamic militants. The area used to be a thriving tourist haven with hotels and a ski resort but came under complete control of Taliban militants in September 2007.

Government security forces cleared out the Taliban from the valley in recent months, but the area came under their control once again three weeks ago.

With their re-asserted control, the Taliban has forced all Swat residents to live according to their strict lifestyle guidelines, whether Muslim or Christian.

Men have grown beards and adopted Islamic dress. Women are required to wear burqas and sit in the back seat of their own vehicles. Advertisements cannot feature pictures of women.

“The Taliban wants to create a culture of terror, insecurity and they want to impose a self-created system of sharia [Islamic law] inspired by the system in Afghanistan,” said Shabhaz Bhatti, a National Assembly member from the Punjab province and chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance.

The 70 or so Christian families scattered in the valley occupy the lower class, working as laborers and street sweepers.

Since July 2007, militants and followers of Muslim cleric Maulana Fazlullah have pressured the tiny community of Christians to accept Islamic law.

 

Political Motives

Islamic militants have stepped up attacks across Pakistan in recent weeks. Last Thursday (Oct. 9) a suicide bomber injured eight people in an attack on an Islamabad police station. In September another suicide bomber killed 50 people at the Marriott Hotel.

Motivations for the surge in attacks could be political as well as religious. Pakistani forces have been cracking down on militants in the nation’s tribal areas as the government has resolved to fight domestic terrorism.

The Pakistani military launched a three-week-long air strike operation in Afghanistan in August and killed more than 400 Taliban militants. Pakistan declared a cease-fire in September during Ramadan.

The militant attacks could also be in retaliation to recent U.S. bombings against Taliban targets within Pakistan, a source told Compass.

Inter-Services Intelligence Director Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha told Pakistan’s parliament on Wednesday (Oct. 8) that the Taliban had gained complete control over certain districts of the country. The military has attempted to regain control in a bitter struggle that has claimed the lives of 1,368 troops since 2001, according to the Pakistani Daily Times.

While Christians are worried about their safety, they stress that the Taliban is a threat to all Pakistanis, regardless of religion.

They urged fellow Christians to pray for the surging violence within the country to ebb.

“We ask a special prayer for peace in our country and that the terrorist elements who believe in violence would not succeed in killing innocent people,” Bhatti said. “Pray for Pakistani Christians – may God protect them and give them courage to remain strong in their faith and witness.”

Report from Compass Direct News

LAOS: VILLAGE TO EXPEL 55 CHRISTIANS

Community decides to resolve ‘problem’ of families refusing to recant faith.

DUBLIN, September 25 (Compass Direct News) – The chief of Boukham village in Savannakhet province, Laos, on Friday (Sept. 19) called a special community meeting to resolve the “problem” of eight resident Christian families who have refused to give up their faith. The meeting concluded with plans to expel all 55 Christians from the village.

Although all adult members of a village are usually invited to such meetings, on this occasion the Christians were deliberately excluded, according to rights group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).

Pastor Sompong Supatto, 32, and two other believers from the village, Boot Chanthaleuxay, 18, and Khamvan Chanthaleuxay, also 18, remain in detention in the nearby Ad-Sapangthong district police detention cell. HRWLRF earlier reported that police have held the men in handcuffs and wooden foot stocks since their arrest on Aug. 3, causing numbness and infection in their legs and feet due to lack of blood circulation. (See Compass Direct News, “Lao Christians Pressured to Renounce Faith.” Sept. 18.)

Authorities have said they will release the three only if they renounce their faith.

 

Pressure to Renounce Faith

When family members traveled to visit the detainees on Aug. 24, police officers deliberately tightened their restraints and told the families that this was the consequence of not renouncing their faith.

On Aug. 25, the village chief encouraged family members to apply for bail for the two teenagers but said Supatto did not qualify for bail, as his punishment for leading the Boukham church would be “life in prison.”

Three days later, the chief again pressured family members to sign documents renouncing their faith, but they refused.

Authorities initially arrested Supatto and four other believers from the Boukham church on July 20, detaining them for two days in a prison in nearby Dong Haen, according to HRWLRF sources.

Police stormed into the church that Sunday and ordered the 63 Christians present to cease worshiping or they would face arrest and imprisonment for “believing and worshiping God.”

When the Christians refused to comply, stating that Sunday was a Christian holy day and they must continue worshiping, the police arrested Supatto and two other church leaders identified only as Kai and Phuphet.

When the believers continued worshiping, police arrested a man identified only as Sisompu and a 17-year-old girl identified only as Kunkham. They detained all five in Dong Haen prison and charged them with spreading the gospel and holding a religious meeting without permission.

Although the Lao constitution “guarantees” freedom of religion and worship, church fellowships must be registered with government-approved institutions. Such registration comes with strict limitations on the activity of the church, however, and many Christians prefer not to register.

On July 22, three Christians approached the provincial religious affairs office in Savannakhet to challenge the arrests, asking how the five could be charged for “spreading the gospel” during a church worship service.

Officials then released the five on condition that they would cease holding worship meetings. They ordered them to seek permission from village authorities if they wanted to continue meeting together.

When the Christians continued to gather for prayer and worship, officials on Aug. 2 arrested a Christian villager identified only as Menoy, charging her with “believing in Jesus and worshiping God.”

The arrests of Supatto and two members of the Chanthaleuxay family followed on Aug. 3.  

Report from Compass Direct News