Small business in ‘recession’ as public service thrives
Fewer small businesses are employing staff than when Labor came to office despite robust population growth, which the opposition is linking to the government’s decision to hire tens of thousands of public servants.
Deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley said there were 31,900 fewer small businesses employing Australians than when Labor took office, taking the number from more than 953,000 to about 922,000.
“This looks like a small business recession to me,” Ley said. “These numbers again confirm we are seeing an ‘albonomics ratio’ – Australia is putting on a permanent public servant for every small business we are losing.”
While the number of small businesses employing Australians has slipped, the wider definition of “small business” which includes sole traders, has continued to grow under Labor, with the most recent financial year data showing there were about 300,000 new small businesses created in the past year.
The fresh claims from the Coalition come amid a debate on the growth of jobs in the public service and sectors with major taxpayer funding such as health and education, which have substantially outpaced the growth in employment in the purely private sector.
The Coalition has labelled the 20 per cent growth in the federal public service, amounting to 36,000 additional public servants, “wasteful spending”. It has not revealed how many will be cut beyond ruling out redundancies in frontline services.
Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Melissa Donnelly claimed any cuts from the public service would mean pensioners, students and people with disability would have to wait longer for support and only benefit big consultancies.
“More than half of these 36,000 public service jobs are based outside of Canberra,” she said. “If Peter Dutton gets rid of them, he is ripping jobs out of regional communities and local economies.”
Minister for small business Julie Collins took issue with the Coalition’s definition of small business, saying it was “an insult to hard-working sole traders” across Australia.
