Tasmania should be able to dodge a recession if it can avoid coronavirus lockdowns.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
That is the view of economist Saul Eslake, who said state final demand figures for the June quarter released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed "a reasonably good picture" of the Tasmanian economy.
"We're not leading the nation, as is sometimes alleged, but we're doing okay," Mr Eslake said.
"If we can avoid lockdowns here, we should be able to avoid the recessions which are, by my definition, currently afflicting New South Wales and Victoria."
A recession is often defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.
Mr Eslake said he thought that definition was silly and lazy.
He preferred to define a recession as when the unemployment rate rose by 1.5 percentage points or more in 12 months or less.
He calculated the national rate of effective unemployment rose from 5.7 per cent in May to 7.3 per cent in June and 8 per cent in July.
"So by that reckoning, the Australian economy is in recession now, whether we end up having two consecutive quarters of negative growth in real GDP or not," he said.
The ABS calculated GDP (gross domestic product) increased by 0.7 per cent in the June quarter.
Tasmanian state final demand - which measures household, business and government spending with some exceptions - grew by 1.4 per cent in the June quarter.
Mr Eslake said it was 13.1 per cent above state final demand in the June quarter last year and 3.5 per cent above its pre-recession peak in the September quarter of 2019.
Mid-2020 was when the pandemic and responses to it crashed the state economy and threw thousands of Tasmanians out of work.
The ABS estimated Tasmanian households' consumption spending increased by 0.9 per cent in the June quarter, due to extra spending on furnishings, household equipment and vehicles.
Tasmanian consumption spending by the three levels of government grew by 1.2 per cent.
Acting Premier Jeremy Rockliff said annual state final demand growth of a "whopping" 13.1 per cent was the second strongest growth rate among the states.
"Our businesses are confident, investing and hiring, there are more Tasmanians in work than before the pandemic and 28,400 jobs have been created since we came to government in 2014," he said.