Tag Archives: covid impact

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Covid Impacts For School Planners- Using available data from late 2021, the Education Geographics team calculated post-Covid spatial estimates from 2020 to 2031 on total population, pre-schoolers and school-aged children.

Covid Impacts For School Planners

Category:EducationTags : 

Using available data from late 2021, the Education Geographics team calculated post-Covid spatial estimates from 2020 to 2031 on total population, pre-schoolers and school-aged children.

Our preliminary EGS population modelling indicates that the big winners from Covid impacts on total Australian population growth have been the four SA4 ABS statistical regions making up the state of Tasmania, along with four regions within a two-hour commute of the Melbourne CBD: Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and La Trobe-Gippsland. (See the purple SA4 regions in our attached map).

Click Map to Zoom

Covid Impacts For School Planners Using available data from late 2021, the Education Geographics team calculated post-covid spatial estimates from 2020 to 2031 on total population, pre-schoolers and school-aged children.

It seems that the big Covid lockdown of Tasmania worked a treat to boost Tasmania’s modest but stable, pre-Covid state annual growth rate, from about 0.5 percent up to 0.7 percent between 2020 and 2031, with most of the gains coming in Hobart.

And it seemed that some Melbourne residents wanting a relatively safe work-from-home retreat still wanted the option of a convenient weekly commute to meetings in the CBD. If this wasn’t needed, well, they just moved to South East Queensland.

And the big losers? Take your pick of pretty much any capital city CBD across the nation, with greater Sydney a very sad sea of red on our attached map of Covid population impacts. No wonder the NSW Government are lobbying to crank up migration numbers.

As far as the other capitals went, those most adversely impacted after Sydney were, In diminishing order, the ABS regions of Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and then Adelaide.

By way of benchmarks, we anticipate that the annual pre-Covid national growth rate of 1.6 percent will drop to an annual average of about 1.0 percent out to 2031.

In terms of total Australian population, this translates to a predicted post-Covid figure of 28.5 million, compared to a pre-Covid figure of 30.3 million, a drop of 1.8 million persons, due to Covid impacts.

When it comes to pre-schoolers aged 0-4 years, the national predicted pre-Covid figure of 1.9 million could drop by 340,000 to 1.56 million, with the biggest losses experienced in the suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney

For school children aged 5 to 17 years, the expected national pre-Covid population could drop by more than half a million students, from 4.8 million to 4.3 million. At 25 kids per class, that’s enough kids to fill more than 20,000 classrooms that we’d expected to see by 2031, but now we don’t.

Where these gaps in previous forecasts are likely to be concentrated is fundamental to planning decisions over the next decade.

All EGS client schools will have this pre-Covid and post-Covid information for total population, pre-schoolers and school children projected as a summary onto their major catchments.

In addition, on request, EGS qualified professionals will be able to access EGS fine-grained data for school planning projects, such as a new campus, or for commercial expansion plans for a pre-Covid growth area.

Planning before Covid

Before Covid hit our shores in late 2019, population forecasts for urban planners were pretty straightforward.

After the detailed data had been published from the 2016 Census, projections were prepared for the Australian Government Department of Health by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. These projections reflected assumptions made about future fertility, mortality and migration trends.

It was all very official and credible and was produced down to relatively fine grained SA2 levels of about 10,000 persons and extensively used by schools, developers, big business and urban planners at all levels of Government and across the private sector.

The Health Department data was considered so reliable, you could take it to the bank and many investors did just that.

And then along came Covid in late 2019 and made all prior population forecasts redundant.

National borders were closed, many foreign students already here departed our shores, potential students and skilled workers were locked out, businesses were shut down for months at a time, working from home became the norm, CBDs were deserted and families began to drift outwards from Melbourne and Sydney into the regions and then interstate.

The December 2021 data from the ABS for mid-2021 showed Victoria lost so many overseas migrants and interstate migrants that the state was de-populating over the previous year. For planners counting on future population growth to underpin investments, this is genuinely scary stuff. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/jun-2021

Queensland was the biggest winner in terms of gaining these interstate migrants from both New South Wales and Victoria, with anecdotal evidence inferring most gains were in the outlying coastal regions of South East Queensland and possibly northern NSW.

In early January 2022, we were in fact about to fine tune our forecasts to take these latest ABS figures into account, but ballooning omicron numbers by then had pretty much spoiled that sense of post-vaccination optimism.

We will monitor developments over the next months for the expected peak and fade of omicron and the possible arrival of new Covid variants. When we have more substantial evidence of sustainable trends, we will re-visit our forecasts.

We have a way to go yet with this virus, unfortunately, and with the evolving impact it is having on our total population numbers and spatial growth patterns across the nation.


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Education Geographics has been working closely with Australian Development Strategies and Health Geographics to map future spatial population impacts of Covid.

Looking Beyond Covid – Spatially

Category:EducationTags : 

Australia is predicted to lose a million persons in the next few years, when compared to pre-Covid estimates.

These losses are likely to be highest in suburbs near universities which had previously enjoyed strong population growth, due to recent large intakes of foreign students and very high levels of net overseas migration (NOM).

Education Geographics has been working closely with Australian Development Strategies and Health Geographics to map future spatial population impacts of Covid. The work has been mentored by distinguished Australian economist Saul Eslake.

An Esri map provided through this link https://arcg.is/1yX4qD shows our projected Covid impact by SA2 on pre-Covid population estimates.

Marketing Strategies for Schools - Looking beyond covid, spatially, Education Geographics for School Management & Marketing Strategies for education institutions in Australia.

More detailed maps of target areas and numbers will be provided on request to clients of EGS, ADS and HGS.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept new school entrants in Term 1, 2021, but we have limited spaces available for new schools in Term 2.

If your school is ready to plan for your post-Covid future, complete the form below and book an interactive experience with our new 2021 Covid-ready App.


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    Janus god of beginnings

    Looking Beyond Covid

    Category:EducationTags : 

    Looking back to the dark days of the pandemic in mid-2020, we were able to tell our Principals which families and streets within their catchment needed support during job lock downs. We then charted the jobs recovery by suburbs so school Business Managers could track the recovery in their local economies.

    But that was the easy part. Looking Beyond Covid has only just begun.

    From 2021 to 2024, EGS schools will need to plan for a future Australia with one million fewer residents than anticipated, due to a 12 month freeze on younger migrants, with flow-through impacts for internal migration and births. We have modelled post-Covid population projections by age groups and suburbs, so EGS school leadership teams have these new student numbers and can plan their futures with greater confidence.

    Unfortunately, we cannot accept new school entrants in Term 1, 2021, but we have limited spaces available for new clients in Term 2.

    If your school is ready to plan for your post-Covid future, complete the form below and book an interactive experience with our new 2021 Covid-ready App.

       


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      JobMaker misses the real target by John Black CEO of EGS

      We Told You So..

      Category:Labour MarketTags : 

      JobMaker misses the real target – written by John Black, CEO of Education Geographics, November 17, 2020

      Today’s ABS Single Touch Payroll data confirms that JobMaker has come too late to help younger workers displaced by Covid job lockdowns and it is now missing the real target – older workers in retirement and tourist regions.

      Outside of Victoria, Australia’s younger workers are already a lot better off than their parents, when it comes to jobs lost due to Covid lockdowns.

      The Jobs Index numbers from today’s ABS release (below) shows workers aged 20-29 years are well ahead of their parents’ generation in the mainland states, with the exception of Victoria.

      This is because younger workers tend to lose their more casual jobs in food and retail first during downturns, but then typically lead the recovery. This means, as a policy response, that JobMaker has come about four months too late for all Australian states except Victoria, which was held back by its second wave.

      The figure below shows job losses for twenty something’s are still quite pronounced in Victoria, as the recovery there from lockdowns has only just begun (fortunately).

      The figure below shows job losses for twenty something’s are still quite pronounced in Victoria, as the recovery there from lockdowns has only just begun (fortunately).

      Even when we include Victoria in the national index numbers, the figure below, shows that workers less than 20 years of age now have more jobs than they did before Covid. By contrast, the big job losses by age deciles have been among workers aged 60 years and over.

      Job Index 17/10/2020, Australia-Even when we include Victoria in the national index numbers, the figure below, shows that workers less than 20 years of age now have more jobs than they did before Covid. By contrast, the big job losses by age deciles have been among workers aged 60 years and over.

      Your humble correspondent has long felt that politicians overreact to the Labour Force stats which show that when a young person loses a job, they join the official unemployment rate and hence dominate news reports, whereas, when an older person loses their job, they tend to leave the official jobs market until they’re sucked back in by local rising demand – particularly for part time tourism and hospitality jobs in regional centres.

      This resonates with the views of University of Melbourne economist Professor Mark Wooden who questioned the Federal Government’s focus on subsidising younger jobs, given the substitution effects which would see young persons prioritised over older workers.

      “I worry if they (the Government) are somewhat sucked in by the argument that young people have been much worse affected economically,” he told the Financial Review after the Budget move was announced.

      “That’s true, but I think that’s true in all recessions. Young people do worse, they lose jobs faster. But they also do better in the recovery.”

      For more background, see my post What’s In An Age  

       


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      Comparing Payroll Jobs and Labour Force Survey Employed Persons

      What’s in an Age?

      Category:Labour MarketTags : 

      Covid Jobs Update from John Black, CEO of Education Geographics, October 12, 2020

      Some economists, trade unions and the Labor Opposition say the Federal Government’s JobMaker Budget proposal which subsidises wages only for eligible workers less than 35 years old should be open to eligible workers of any age. They argue that the current policy discriminates against older workers and may be open to job substitution rorts from some employers.

      And most Australian voters tend to agree with them.

      This week’s Newspoll finds the age-limited JobMaker measure to be unpopular with 57 percent of all voters, 63 percent of older voters and, worryingly for the Government, a clear majority of (mostly older) Coalition voters. Given their concerns and this lack of public support, Labor and the Greens in the Senate can smell a political opportunity and are lining up to give the enabling legislation the death of a thousand committee cuts.

      In defending its proposal, the Government draws heavily in Budget Papers on seasonally adjusted data in the monthly ABS Labour Force Survey and points to higher unemployment rates among younger workers. It also uses Government figures of 700,000 persons under 35 years on Jobseeker or Youth Allowance at the end of August.

      The problem for the Government in relying on the traditional ABS monthly Labour Force sample of about 50,000 persons is that the series has been sorely tested by the immediate and massive labour market disruption caused by emergency social distancing orders and border closures since mid-March, and then by unprecedented stimulus measures from the Federal Government with JobKeeper and JobSeeker to minimise the impacts of this disruption.

      The reliability of data produced by official sources during this somewhat hectic period is illustrated by the fact that the Taxation Office, Treasury and the Government initially estimated 6.5 million Australians would receive JobKeeper at a cost of $130 billion, only to revise the recipients down to 3.5 million and the cost down to $70 billion.

      So, some degree of caution is recommended when evaluating Government initiatives involving both taxpayers’ money and big numbers of jobs in the labour market.

      Bear in mind here the Labour Force series leverages up a random monthly sample of about 50,000 persons to estimate results for about 13 million Australian workers, which the Government has then used to justify biasing its JobMaker policy in favour of certain age groups less than 35 years old.

      The problem for the Government with JobMaker is that these leveraged results are contradicted by the new experimental ABS series based on weekly ATO payroll figures for about ten million real jobs.

      If you’re trying to understand the behaviour of 13 million workers and break it into smaller sub-groups or areas, you’d expect to be a lot better off using a weekly sample of 10 million jobs, rather than a monthly sample of 50,000 persons.

      Before you do, it’s useful to compare the two series first. See an ABS comparison here: https://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/weekly-payroll-jobs-and-wages-australia-methodology/week-ending-5-september-2020#differences-to-labour-force-employment-statistics

      Figure 1 below, shows the national summary for age-based August payroll data by index numbers in blue, and a comparable index we constructed for the labour force sample by age groups in green.

      Figure 1 shows, that despite definitional differences, the Payroll jobs and Labour Force Survey index values are similar for (combined) all ages, and for those age groups 20-29, 30-39, 40-49 and 50-59 years, with each group containing between 2.3 and three million workers.

      And both series confirm the twenty-somethings potentially benefiting from the Government JobMaker wage subsidy scheme are up to three percent worse off than the average worker and worthy of some targeted support, with appropriate safeguards.

      A large part of this poor result for twenty somethings is due to the ongoing job lockdowns in Victoria and the Victorian figures pulling down the national results. Clearly, the Commonwealth Government here has thrown a JobMaker lifeline to Victoria, without breaching its obligations to the states which have made a better fist of managing Covid.

      But what about the strong public sentiment in favour of extending JobMaker to other age groups, particularly older Australians? The payroll jobs index shows there has been a 5.2% decline in jobs for 60-69-year-olds. Contrastingly, according to the Labour Force series, there has been only a 0.4% decline in employed persons aged 60 years or more, an age group containing about 1.4 million workers.

      So, the payroll data paints a grim picture for older workers, but the Labour Force data does not.

      We see the reverse picture for the relatively small (about 600,000) group of very young workers aged 15-19 years, with payroll data spot on the national average for all workers, but the Labour Force screaming panic stations, with nearly 13 percent of very young workers losing jobs since the job lockdowns started with the 100th confirmed Coronavirus case in mid-March.

      Thanks to the great work done by the ABS since March with the huge volume of data provided by the Australian Taxation Office in the payroll series we can drill down further than the national figures by age, down into age groups by State, shown below in Table 1.

      This adds the ingredient missing from the national age-based data and that’s Victoria, where the state figures for all ages trail more than three points behind the national figure and the bulk of these job losses have been experienced by workers under 29 years and above 60 years.

      Table 1

      In every state, bar Victoria, the under 20s are back up close to or above the pre-Covid index numbers, while those 70 and over are still well below these figures. When we isolate the bigger groups of those in their 20s and their 60s, the position is shown in Figure 2, below.

      n every state, bar Victoria, the under 20s are back up close to or above the pre-Covid index numbers

      Figure 2

      The evidence here shows that, during a lockdown period, the jobs situation is worst for young people (with lots of jobs lost in food and retail). However, after lockdown, there is faster recovery in the job situation for young people.

      For Australia as a whole:

      • the jobs index value for 60-69-year-olds fell to 93.1 on 18 April and recovered by about two points to 94.8 on 15 Aug.
      • the jobs index value for 20-29-year olds fell drastically to 85.9 on 18 April but also recovered rapidly to 93.8 on 15 Aug.

       

      in Victoria, which remained in lockdown in August, the jobs index values for both groups have remained low, and are much lower in the younger age group.

      Figure 3 shows the big and prolonged slump for twenty-somethings in Victoria, and an identical slump but subsequent recovery for twenty-somethings in Australia as a whole, which of course includes Victoria. Take out Victoria and the twenty-somethings could be about level or narrowly ahead of their grandparents.

      Figure 3 shows the big and prolonged slump for twenty-somethings in Victoria

      Figure 3

      Put simply, the evidence supported by the millions of taxpayers in the payroll data series infers that the Government doesn’t need a recovery in jobs for young people; rather it needs a recovery in jobs in Victoria, as the latter would render the former done and dusted.

      Your humble correspondent, who has long felt that politicians overreact to the Labour Force stats which show that when a young person loses a job, they join the official unemployment rate and hence dominate news reports, whereas, when an older person loses their job, they tend to leave the official jobs market until they’re sucked back in by local rising demand – particularly for part time tourism and hospitality jobs in regional centres.

      This resonates with the views of University of Melbourne economist Professor Mark Wooden who questioned the Federal Government’s focus on subsidising younger jobs, given the substitution effects which would see young persons prioritised over older workers.

      “I worry if they (the Government) are somewhat sucked in by the argument that young people have been much worse affected economically,” he told the Financial Review after the Budget move was announced.

      “That’s true, but I think that’s true in all recessions. Young people do worse, they lose jobs faster. But they also do better in the recovery.”

      In that case, wage subsidies would have a windfall effect by paying for the employment of workers who would have been hired anyway.

      For what my views are worth here, I’m backing the weekly payroll data interpretation of the current labour market when it comes to its age profile. And, given most Australians and a majority of Coalition voters agree with me, the Government would be wise to accept Senate amendments broadening JobMaker to all Australians.

      “Life is so normal”, the Treasurer reportedly remarked last weekend, after months locked down in Melbourne and quarantined in Canberra, when he visited Sydney and was able to get out of the office and share a coffee with others in Bondi.

      Perhaps he needed to look more closely at the ages of those serving him, as the payroll data shows more jobs for the under 20s in NSW now than there was before the Covid lockdowns.

       


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      Impact on Australian Employment by COVID-19 by John Black, ADS Chairman

      Impact on Australian Employment by COVID-19

      Category:Health,Labour MarketTags : 

      We trace the jobs impact of the Covid-19 labour market shutdown in a news article and a linked online story map published in The Australian today.

      The story outlines the evidence that the jobs downturn impacts announced by the Prime Minister in late March were sudden and deep and that since then, there have already been some tentative signs of a small jobs recovery in those states with lower levels of new Covid-19 cases, in apparent anticipation of an easing of social distancing and travel restrictions. However, in those states with continuing cases of new community transmission the downturn in higher SES professional jobs has deepened.

      The article is available only to The Australian readers and subscribers and covers the new payroll data provided to the public by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as a public service, while the data is still being developed.

      The ADS/Esri maps in the article are based on 2019 Federal electorates and use the same data, so caution is advised. They are user-friendly for mobiles and are available on the ADS website at https://www.elaborate.net.au/impact-on-australian-employment-by-covid-19/

      John Black, ADS Chairman. Dr Jeanine McMullan, Chief Mapper.

       

      Click for Federal Seats Jobs Map

      Impact on Australian Employment by COVID-19 by John Black, ADS Chairman


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      Total Job Losses Due to Covid 19

      Mapping the impact of Covid downturn

      Category:HealthTags : 

      A co-operative venture between Australian Development Strategies, Health Geographics and Education Geographics has set out to regularly monitor, profile and map big data on jobs and wages from 10,000,000 Australians during the Covid recession.

      The jobs data is now being collected weekly via the Tax Office one touch payroll system and published fortnightly by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

      The first of a series of maps has been published today on the three web sites via the following link https://arcg.is/1HeD5n It will allow readers to see the impact of the Covid restrictions and monitor changes as they are withdrawn in stages over coming months.

      More detailed maps and profiling will be made available to clients of the three companies ADS, HGS and EGS.

      The first maps published today show most jobs and wages lost by suburb have been close to capital city CBDs, coming as a direct result of the closure of gyms, personal training groups and theatrical productions.

      The biggest per capita loss of jobs has occurred across smaller suburbs in rural and tourist regions like Mount Beauty in Victoria or Port Douglas in far north Queensland.

      Suburbs across Australia relatively unaffected by jobs loss or per capita jobs loss have dominated by public sector jobs, such as Duntroon, Macarthur or Barton in the ACT, in remote indigenous communities like the APY lands in South Australia or Arnhem Land in the NT, or in mining towns like Mount Isa or Weipa in Queensland or Roxby Downs in SA.

      As schools progressively re-open and restrictions are lifted on travel, hospitality and public gatherings, we will monitor the changes in jobs and wages for our readers and clients.