IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecr/v59y2026i1p20-58.html

Decline to Boom to Slowdown: Australia's Labour Market in the COVID‐19 Era

Author

Listed:
  • Jeff Borland

Abstract

This article presents a 5‐year review of Australia's labour market from early 2020 through to the end of 2024, what I term the ‘COVID‐19 era’. A first objective is to provide a history of the main developments in the labour market during this period. The evolution of employment outcomes is charted, together with analysis of how adjustment happened, which jobs and workers were most affected, and the role of government policy. Topics relating to wage growth, labour supply and labour productivity are also covered in detail. A second objective is to demonstrate that understanding the COVID‐19 era enables important lessons to be drawn about the operation of Australia's labour market and about policy—relevant both for today and for similar future episodes.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeff Borland, 2026. "Decline to Boom to Slowdown: Australia's Labour Market in the COVID‐19 Era," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 59(1), pages 20-58, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:59:y:2026:i:1:p:20-58
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.70047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70047
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8462.70047?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:59:y:2026:i:1:p:20-58. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.