Page 24 - Tropic Magazine Issue 25

TROPIC • DATA CRUNCH

How has the

Cairns economy
fared during the

COVID-19 crisis?

ANALYSIS
Words: Pete Faulkner, CONUS
Since the impacts of COVID-19 began The labour market in Jobs Market
hitting home, our economy has changed The labour market in Cairns went into
enormously. Staying abreast of these Cairns went into this this crisis in relatively good shape with
changes has been a constant struggle; coronavirus crisis in the unemployment rates a little over
not only has reliable data been difficult 5% early in the year. However, with
to secure but analysing it in such volatile relatively good shape an estimated 22,000 people receiving
times has been challenging. Since we are JobKeeper in our region and another
now more than three months into the Pete Faulkner, 16,000 receiving Centrelink payments,
effects of the pandemic, it seems like a CONUS it is clear that the story has changed
good time to pull together some of that dramatically. We estimate that the
analysis. and by March this visitor segment was unemployment rate in Cairns could get
down nearly 30% from a year earlier.
National Overview International and domestic tourism was as high as 10.5% in the third quarter and
Treasury and the Reserve Bank are almost non-existent from March to June, may struggle to get much below double
suggesting that the Australian economy but anecdotal evidence suggests that digits by the end of the year even if some
is set to contract by about 5 - 6% during since the intrastate travel restrictions form of revised JobKeeper is announced
2020. Most of that decline will have come were eased and the Queensland border by the Government.
in the second quarter of the year as the opened there has been a solid pick-up in Other tourism-reliant regions such as
economy hibernated in full lock-down domestic arrivals. Getting planes back the Gold and Sunshine Coasts are also
mode and recovery could end up looking into the sky and landing in Cairns will set to see significant downturns with
more like a Nike ‘swoosh’ than a classic be crucial to ensuring domestic tourism unemployment there possibly getting as
V-shape. However, we are starting to can recover as quickly and as effectively high as Cairns, although here we expect
see something of a recovery across the as possible. It appears unlikely that to see a rather faster recovery as domestic
nation as people begin to find jobs again international tourism will return in any tourism plays a more central role.
(June saw more than 210,000 added to shape until the end of 2021 at the earliest. Nevertheless, both these regions are likely
employment) but the unemployment to perform worse than state or national
rate remains high at 7.4%. JobKeeper is averages.
distorting this data and it seems clear Economic Outlook
that were it not for this initiative the true
unemployment rate would be Our estimate is that the Cairns economy
much higher. will contract by between 7 - 8% this year
Impact in Cairns and be one of the worst hit regions in the
State. It could take up to four years to
In Cairns, we started to suffer from get back to where we were before
the effects of COVID-19 early. Chinese COVID-19 struck.
tourist numbers into our region, which nus.com.au
had already been in a slow decline since MORE: conus.com.au
2016, fell sharply during the first quarter

24 • Tropic • Issue 25