Jobs back ‘around the same level as last year’, ABS payroll data shows

Payroll jobs have recovered to the same level as they were a year ago, according to new data.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that in the last fortnight of January the number of payroll jobs increased by 1.3 per cent nationally — with almost every industry benefiting.

It means the number of payroll jobs are back to where they were at the beginning of February last year, when Australian officials were still scrambling to deal with the then relatively new and unknown threat posed by COVID-19.

For context, on February 1 last year the Australian Government first…