Unemployment figures blasted as ‘misleading’ amid hidden jobs crisis

Institute of Public Affairs Chief Economist Adam Creighton claims official unemployment statistics mask the true scale of underemployment and workforce distress across Australia. Unemployment figures released on Thursday show a drop from 4.5 to 4.4 per cent. “That’s actually a really misleading picture, there are actually millions of people who are excluded from being technically unemployed,” Mr Creighton told Sky News host Jaimee Rogers. “When you add in all those other people, the jobless rates are more like 10 or 15 per cent. That’s not the figure obviously, the government want to talk about. “There are millions of people who want to work out there who can’t, or indeed there are people in work who want more hours who can’t get more hours.”