A new report has revealed that the entire Shortland electorate is extremely vulnerable to job losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Centre of Full Employment and Equity’s latest Employment Vulnerability Index (EVI) looks at Australian suburbs susceptibility to economic and social disadvantage due to COVID-19 job losses and ranks them according to four risk categories: high risk, medium high risk, medium low risk, and low risk.
Windale, Belmont South, Marks Point, Gwandalan, Chain Valley Bay, Lake Munmorah, Doyalson, Colongra, Halekulani and Budgewoi have all been placed in the high risk category, while the rest of the Shortland electorate is deemed medium high risk.
This is extremely concerning, particularly given the low socio-economic status of some of these communities.
Every previous recession has taught us that once jobs are lost, it is very hard to find new ones.
Despite the Prime Minister’s, assurance it is very unlikely that there will be a snapback at the end of this pandemic. A lot of Australians including my constituents will be feeling the economic impacts of this crisis for a long time.
This is why Scott Morrison must maintain his commitment to keep the JobKeeper subsidy in place until at least September to not add more people to the unemployment queue.