Strong jobs growth for Cairns as unemployment falls

Published Thursday, 29 March, 2018 at 03:52 PM

Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skills Development
The Honourable Shannon Fentiman

Cairns is one of Queensland’s job creation hot spots, the latest Labour force figures have revealed.

The ABS regional employment data published today (Thursday) shows that in the last year 6,800 more people have found jobs in the city and there has been a big fall in youth unemployment.

Member for Cairns Michael Healy said the latest data for February shows that the Palaszczuk Government’s commitment to job growth is working.

“This is great news for our growing city of Cairns with the second largest decrease in unemployment of 1.9% over the last 12 months from 7.7% in February 2017 to 5.8% today,” Mr Healy said.

Fire and Emergency Services Minister and Member for Barron River Craig Crawford said it was pleasing to see the steady improvement in employment in Cairns.

“Thanks to the growing tourism activity in the region, it’s great to see our employment is steadily rising, this is fantastic news for thousands of local families.”

Speaker of the Queensland Parliament and Member for Mulgrave Curtis Pitt said the Palaszczuk Government is continuing to deliver jobs for Cairns.

“Programs like Back to Work and Skilling Queenslanders for work have been essential to the improved labour market in the Far North and with the Cairns Convention Centre expansion, the Global Tourism Hub and more and bigger cruise ships on the horizon, businesses are becoming more confident every week,” Mr Pitt said.

Minister for Employment Shannon Fentiman said the Palaszczuk Government’s Back to Work program gives employers the confidence they need to be able to employ more Queenslanders.

“We have now assisted more than 2,300 Queenslanders in the Far North to get a job with our investment of $17.84 million across more than 1,000 local employers thanks to the Back to Work program.”

“We have seen more than 14,000 participants in our Skilling Queenslanders for Work initiative get into work, including almost 700 participants in Cairns.”

Cairns has reported the second largest fall in youth unemployment with a 7.6% drop across in the past 12 months from 22.9% to 15.3%.

 

ENDS

 

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