The COVID-19 crisis, recession and Indigenous jobs

Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian governments at national, state and territory levels have introduced drastic lockdown measures along with heightened border controls to limit the spread of the virus. At the time of writing, Australia had closed its borders to non-residents and had introduced measures limiting gatherings of non-household members to no more than two people. Though implemented with the worthy intention of saving lives, the medical emergency is causing an economic recession as many businesses are shutting down or significantly reducing their production capacity. For example, cafes and restaurants have been required to limit their activities to takeaway and delivery services only. Many are consequently becoming insolvent. Hundreds of thousands of Australians have already been made unemployed, and millions more could lose their jobs if the pandemic continues to spread and if more stringent social distancing measures are put in place. On the other hand, there has been a surging labour demand in some industries such as healthcare services, online retail and associated logistics, supermarkets and call centres. For example, Coles has announced the employment of more than 10,000 workers in less than a week, and has pledged to hire thousands more in the coming weeks. But such demand may have been induced by panic buying and hoarding, and could be short-lived. At best, the increased demand represents a shift from other parts of the economy rather than indicating increased aggregate demand.