Travel agency employee Rosemary Green turns 60 this year, and is in a state of limbo about her chosen career after the travel industry was decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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"Hopefully when the travel market opens up again, I'd like to go back into it," she said.
"I don't want to start a new career at this stage of my life. I don't want to do anything else, I just love travel.
"I hope to maybe get a job ... I'd like to keep working."
When the pandemic halted international travel, Mrs Green's job at Merola's Travel Service at Corrimal soon became untenable, after 20 years at the business.
The Woonona resident has been on the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme since its inception last year.
However, with the subsidy scheme ending, Mrs Green has been left without a job going forward.
The business will vacate its premises as of this weekend, and will continue to operate remotely in some capacity.
"The only reason to keep us there was this JobKeeper payment, otherwise we would have closed the doors last year," she said.
"When COVID first happened, the only work we did was chasing up cancellations and refunds.
"The other girl there has found herself a job. I kept holding off, hoping something might happen, but no.
"I had a cry this morning, as it's my last day at work... Very upset and sad."
The JobKeeper program will end on March 28.
The boss of Treasury expects up to 150,000 Australians could lose work when the JobKeeper program ends on Sunday.
New figures from the Australian Tax Office show there were more than one million employees still relying on the wage subsidy at the end of January.
But Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy insists it is an appropriate time to end the program, telling a Senate Estimates hearing JobKeeper has "done its job" of propping up the economy during COVID-19 restrictions and assisting in the recovery.
"I think it's great they're handing out all these vouchers and helping out other industries, but we need help too," Mrs Green said. "They've got to continue JobKeeper, or support us in some way, to keep the industry going."
Shadow Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones, Member for Whitlam and Sharon Bird, Member for Cunningham criticised the decision to cut JobKeeper next week and highlighted its impact on workers and businesses.
"If JobKeeper had been administered properly, we could spend the same amount of money and continue it to help people like Rosemary stay in a job," Mr Jones said.
"Tragically, the government has wasted money, up to one-third of the money, going to companies that have made a crackerjack profit at the same time as taking a wage subsidy from taxpayers. They've done nothing unlawful, but we don't think it's right.
"Our message to the government is simple. If we are saying to an industry that we've got to close you down to keep Australia safe, then we actually have an obligation to provide some support to those industries, the workers in those industries, who are affected by that decision. Because they're doing their bit to keep the rest of us safe."
Ms Bird said there were "real people at the end of this decision".
"They need to, if they're not going to continue JobKeeper, have a targeted program to keep people like Rosemary in the industry and keep doors open," she said.
Ms Bird also said this would result in a gap of lost expertise when experienced workers such as Mrs Green were forced to leave their respective industries.
Mandy Booker, general manager of Wollongong Homeless Hub said with the end to many businesses receiving JobKeeper, they were fearful of the increase in people needing assistance for the first time in their lives.
"Businesses that need additional support due to the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and the ongoing restriction changes need more time to be able to support the numbers of staff they are able to keep employed," she said.
"Wollongong Homeless Hub has already had an increase of working individuals and families seeking assistance as their work hours have reduced, so we anticipate it will now only get worse."
According to the Morrison government, nationally, since the end of the first phase of JobKeeper (April to September 2020), there have been more than 2.7 million employees and about 680,000 businesses that have graduated from the JobKeeper program, representing a 72 per cent decline in the number of employees on JobKeeper.
They say in the Illawarra, about 55,400 employees received payments over the first phase, compared with 13,100 in January.
"With our economic recovery well under way, we have seen around half a million businesses employing over two million Australians graduating off JobKeeper," Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said.
"These improvements have been broad based across the country and we have seen encouraging signs across the sectors that were hardest hit by the pandemic especially in tourism reliant regions and industries."
The government has also announced it will inject an additional $135 million to support jobs in the arts and entertainment sector.
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