To reduce unemployment rate, SA government offers SMEs $10,000 grant for each state resident hired

Australia’s unemployment rate remained steady at 5.7 percent in May, but in South Australia, the jobless rate is a high 7 percent, the worst in the country. To reduce the unemployment rate, the state government is offering grants of up to $10,000 to small- and medium-sized businesses in SA for every new local worker it would hire.

To fund the grant, the SA government allocated $109 million. The aim of the incentive is to fire up the small business sector and erase SA’s notoriety as the unemployment capital of Australia, reports The Guardian.

“Lately it’s sputtering a bit and our unemployment rate is unacceptable … This is a way of helping them to give another South Australian an opportunity to have a job,” says SA Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis. He points out that SA enterprises are not seeking handouts. “They just want it to be a bit easier,” he adds.

If the state could afford to be more generous to SA companies, it’s because Koutsantonis just delivered a surplus for the first time since the 2009-10 financial year. It is the current treasurer’s third budget, reports 9News.

The state’s budget surplus is $258 million in 2016-16. Koutsantonis projects a $254 million surplus in 2016-17 which would almost double to $466 million by 2019-20.

SA has an ongoing $12-billion infrastructure programme which allocated $3.2 billion for health facilities, $2 billion on roads and $783 million on public transport.

However, SA Opposition leader Steven Marshall criticizes the treasurer’s budget for driving the state “further into the slow lane.” He says SA residents want a cut in business cost and relief in cost of living which Marshall says are severely lacking in Kutsantonis’s third budget. He particularly cites the need for immediate relief from escalating electricity and water bills, and state taxes.

VIDEO: Unemployment Figures