Why governments should never have a ‘jobs plan’
As long-time readers will know, my favourite economic commentator is Ross Gittins from Fairfax Media. Gittins writes about the economy without fear or favour and speaks a vast amount of sense amongst the nonsense being spouted by people who should know better.
The weekend before last, Gittins titled his article Why the jobs will come, though we can’t say where in response the widespread reaction to the Toyota manufacturing shutdown in Australia in 2017.
I won’t quote Gittins or revisit my 2013 rant about government money propping up inefficient industries but suffice to say Gittins is not a fan of ‘industry policy’ which he rightly derides as ‘disguised protection of favoured industries, amounting to propping up losers rather than picking winners’.
Gittins also, rightly, derides the moronic urgings of the Opposition leader, Bill Shorten for the Government to pony up with their ‘jobs plan’.
As Gittins says:
So what should the Government, any government, actually DO according to Gittins? One is to borrow as much as necessary to provide our businesses with adequate public infrastructure and ensure existing infrastructure is used efficiently through such things as appropriate pricing.
Another is to ensure our education and training system – from early childhood to postgraduate – is doing enough, and is effective enough, in raising the skills of our labour force.’
‘I don’t know where the jobs will come from this time, but I’ll give you a hint: virtually all of them will be in the services sector. How can I be so sure? That’s where virtually all additional jobs have come from for the past 50 years.’