Agriculture defies the downturn

Monday, March 23, 2009

A breakdown of the latest Labour Force quarterly figures show that 3000 more people got jobs in agriculture between November and February.

On the other hand, there's been a big fall in mining employment.

Mining jobs increased by 30,000 in the year to November, but they've dropped 14,000 since the global financial crisis hit.

Tom Murphy, from the Western Research Institute at Charles Sturt University, says agriculture is benefiting from the fall in the dollar and oil price.

"The weather's been a lot better for agriculture over much of rural Australia, and finally, that fall in the mining employment - to some extent mining and agriculture employment is a bit interchangeable, so the fall-off in mining has actually loosened the labour market so that farmers can get more labour."

Sourced from ABC.