Job joy boosts Govt bid to stall wage rate

By Greg Ansley

CANBERRA—Australia's unemployment rate has plunged to its lowest level in more than eight years in a further demonstration of the continuing strength of the domestic economy.

After five flat months, employment in February surged by almost 33,000 jobs, all but 3000 of them fulltime.

The dive in the jobless rate of 7.4 per cent also pruned the politically hypersensitive youth unemployment rate to 23.5 per cent, adding new life to the Government's bid to lock in its junior wage rate legislation.

A bill to extend junior rates past their present mid-2000 expiry date failed in the Senate earlier this week on the vote of Independent Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine.

He has since indicated he may yet support the bill when it returns to the Senate in three months, provided he is satisfied with the outcome of an Industrial Relations Commission inquiry and assurances on equity.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, retaining junior wage rates could further lower unemployment.

The February employment fixtures, released yesterday by the Bureau of Statistics, were above market expectations and showed that even with more people seeking work, the 32,900 new jobs created took the jobless rate to its lowest since September 1990.

New South Wales now has the lowest unemployment rate in Australia, at 6.7 per cent, followed by Western Australia's 7.2 per cent and Victoria's 7.6 per cent.