Jobs in NDIS Are ‘Real Jobs’: Treasurer Backs Growth Figures

The treasurer argues jobs in the care sector should not be considered less important than private sector roles.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme NDIS logo is seen at its head office in Canberra, Australia, on June 22, 2022. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has defended his government against criticism that as high as 40 percent of the million new jobs it boasts of creating during its first term are in the taxpayer-backed care sector.

“Obviously, as the economy recovers, we want to see more jobs created in the private sector,” he told ABC Radio National, “But we need to recognise as well that care economy jobs are real jobs. I completely reject this sense that it’s only a real job if it’s not in the care economy.

“In the context of our ageing population and all of the needs that we have, we want to see care economy workers respected. We are paying them more. We don’t want to see them respected less or paid less,” Chalmers said.

“And that seems to be the approach taken by our critics, and there’s a real snobbiness at the core of that critique, which says that if you work in the care economy, that’s not a real job. It is a real job, we value it, we are paying people appropriately.”

Australia added 64,100 new jobs in September, 51,600 of which were full-time. That brought the total over the first term of the Albanese government to one million.

Half of All New Jobs in Early 2024 Were Government Roles

Earlier this year, Matt Barrie, the founder and CEO of Freelancer—a freelance marketplace website with over 75 million users—called job creation in Australia “a mirage”, claiming only 165,000 jobs had been created outside of healthcare and social assistance in the previous 18 months, with most of the rest being in the taxpayer-funded National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

That’s partly backed by a study by investment bank Jarden, which revealed that around 130,000 of the 437,000 jobs generated in the year to February 2024 were in industries related to the NDIS.

The Scheme currently costs the government $49 billion a year and is expanding at about 20 percent per year, making it the fastest-growing item on the federal budget.

While the sector breakdown for the second half of this year won’t be available until early 2025, the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirmed that half of the 209,000 jobs filled in the six months to June 30 were classified as public sector.

This category usually accounts for around 15 percent of the total labour market.

Federal government spending accounted for a record 11.8 percent of GDP last quarter (June-August).

The only time it has represented a similar share of the economy was in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, Commonwealth and state government spending now account for 27.6 percent of GDP, a post-war record.