Economic idiot: "A bigger, better public sector will secure our future"

There are important lessons to be learnt from the latest news about where our strong growth in employment is coming from. But if we listen to the nostrums of the Smaller Government brigade, we'll get them exactly wrong.

Economic idiot: "A bigger, better public sector will secure our future" 1513476357002

Economic idiot: "A bigger, better public sector will secure our future" 1513476357002

The (trend) figures we got from the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week showed employment growth of 370,000 – or 3.1 per cent – over the year to November. More than 80 per cent of the new jobs were full-time.

Great news.

But my esteemed colleague Peter Martin delved deeper came upon a bigger story: the strong growth in employment has not been spread evenly across the economy, but is heavily concentrated in just two industries: "healthcare and social assistance" and construction.

It's also concentrated disproportionately in Victoria and NSW, and among women workers.

Why? Because, though employment in health and aged care has been growing strongly for years, the latest bout can be attributed mainly to the delayed rollout of the national disability insurance scheme initiated by Julia Gillard. Most of these extra workers would be female.

And because the strong growth in construction employment can be attributed mainly to a boom in infrastructure spending by the Victorian and NSW governments, much of it induced by Joe Hockey's incentive payment to state governments which engaged in "asset recycling" by using the proceeds from privatisation to build new infrastructure.

Oh no! You mean the growth in employment isn't the real deal? It's just some kind of temporary budget stimulus? It's not coming from the productive private sector, just from the unproductive, parasitical public sector, which wouldn't exist without the private sector's blood to suck upon?

http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/a-bigger-better-public-sector-will-secure-our-future-20171216-h05vx3.html

commisbastard

Economic idiot: "A bigger, better public sector will secure our future"

Economic idiot: "A bigger, better public sector will secure our future"

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