THE number of people on welfare benefits for more than a year has hit its highest since early 2002, with long-term recipients swelling by nearly 40 per cent since the global financial crisis.
Despite claims of skills and labour shortages, 349,806 people have been on Newstart Allowance for more than a year, according to Centrelink data for January, published by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
I stand to be corrected but surely this was to be expected after people who had been or would have been on the Parenting Payment - DPB equivalent - were required to either go onto or move to the Newstart Allowance.
Imagine if we did the same. Those parents with children 6 or older were moved onto the Unemployment Benefit. The long-term unemployed would increase.
But the journalist makes no mention of this. It seems a shallow analysis. Hence the conundrum of rising long-term unemployment set against falling unemployment.
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