Job losses from the present COVID-19 lockdown in the Illawarra have reached almost the same point as they did during the 2020 lockdown.
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The fear is that things may get worse before they get better but the region is expected to bounce back quickly once restrictions ease.
RDA Illawarra policy manager Alex Spillett revealed the findings during a Zoom webinar on Thursday, which coincided with the 10th week of lockdown.
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Mr Spillett is planning to give monthly updates using employment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Australian Taxation Office (ATO) payroll data to produce the most recent statistics.
He said the impact of the present lockdown on unemployment at July 31 showed there were 10,400 fewer people in work than in March 2020. Which has taken the unemployment rate in the Illawarra to around 12.4 per cent.
The main sectors affected were accommodation and food, hospitality, arts and recreation, construction, education and training, retail and manufacturing.
"The positive thing for accommodation and food was it was the hardest hit in our previous lockdown but it has also been the fastest to recover," Mr Spillett said.
Sectors that have seen an increase in job numbers during lockdown include health care and public administration.
Mr Spillett said in the first lockdown there was an almost immediate impact on jobs.
"It bottomed out at a loss of 13,200 jobs for the region," he said.
"Then the recovery in the latter part of last year was dramatic and led to employment levels that were actually above pre COVID levels."
Mr Spillett said there was another dip around Christmas with another scare in Sydney followed by a strong recovery at the beginning of 2021 which was maintained until the start of the present lockdown. And in June there was another rapid decline in employment.
"We are not yet at the same level of job losses as April 2020 but we are getting horrifyingly close," he said.
During the webinar it was revealed the impact of the present lockdown on local government areas was fairly similar. But Wollongong appeared to have experienced slightly more job losses than Kiama and Shellharbour.
In terms of business size smaller businesses and sole traders have been hit the hardest.
"The unfortunate thing for the Illawarra is our region has a higher proportion of businesses or micro businesses with one to 19 employees and more businesses in highly affected sectors (hospitality, the arts, construction, retail and manufacturing) than the NSW average," Mr Spillett said.
Looking at a commuter habits the latest data for road and rail commuting showed rail commuting never really recovered to pre COVID levels last year and remained at around 50 per cent of what it was before March 2020.
"Maybe the learning from that is more people are choosing to work from home rather than commute," Mr Spillett said.
"Interestingly we didn't see the same reduction in road commuting. That recovered fairly quickly to two or three per cent below the level pre-COVID. But now it has dived down quite significantly below the dip from the first lockdown.
"So there is no doubt the lockdown is having an impact on our moving around."
Mr Spillett said while the present news was not good for the Illawarra the light at the end of the tunnel was the speed and strength of the last bounce-back. He said we can look forward to that again.
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