Regional Australia hit the hardest by worker shortages, new report shows

Australia’s unprecedented worker shortage crisis is a handbrake on vital economic growth, with communities in regional Western Australia and regional Queensland most heavily impacted, Saxon Davidson, Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has commented.

• Four of the five geographic zones most severely impacted by worker shortages are in regional Western Australia and Queensland.

• Removing red tape and tax barriers preventing pensioners, veterans, and students who want to work from entering the workforce would potentially decrease job vacancies by at least 62 per cent in each geographic zone across the country.

• The federal government’s pension work bonus reform, introduced in December 2022, has failed, with job vacancies declining by only three per cent, and the number of pensioners in the workforce has increased by only 0.1 per cent since implementation.