As Australia election campaign heats up, PM Morrison touts jobs credentials after rival’s gaffe

Morrison said that “despite fires, floods, a pandemic, a global recession, economic coercion from China and now a war in Europe”, his government had driven the unemployment rate down to 13-year lows of 4 per cent, from 5.7 per cent when Labor left office in 2013.

On Monday, Albanese initially said that he thought the current rate was around 5.4 per cent.

“We’ve got the runs on the board,” Morrison said in a reference to cricket, one of Australia’s most popular sports, “and proven plans to deliver.”

“Boosting jobs creation to the levels we saw even before the pandemic is key to our plan for a stronger economy,” he added.

The new jobs would be created “right across the economy”, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Channel Seven.

Australia’s unemployment rate looks certain to fall into the 3 per cent range for the first time since the early 1970s, several months ahead of central bank forecasts, with some economists predicting that it could dip below the budget forecast of 3.75 per cent.

Wage growth was also forecast to accelerate, but not by enough to outpace inflation, leaving real incomes set to shrink this year.

To pacify disgruntled voters, the budget in March increased a tax break for 10 million low- and middle-income earners and offered one-off cash payments for pensioners and a temporary cut in fuel taxes.