The research group’s latest data revealed that there were 13.2 million Australians employed in July, down 176,000 from June figures.
The bulk of the decrease came from part-time work as many staff lost hours from the return of lockdowns, with 115,000 part-time jobs being lost over the month, the data revealed.
A further 61,000 full-time workers also became unemployed, according to the figures.
At the same time, the number of workers looking for full-time work increased by 49,000 over the month to 619,000, while the proportion of workers looking for part-time work decreased 21,000 to 803,000.
The number of Australians who were underemployed also increased by around 77,000 from June to 1.33 million.
“The increases in both unemployment and under-employment in July are not surprising when one considers the number of lockdowns around Australia over the last few months,” Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said.
“There have been three lockdowns of Victoria, two lockdowns in Queensland, a lockdown of South Australia, a lockdown of Greater Perth, a lockdown of Darwin and an extended lockdown in Greater Sydney which began in late June and is set to continue until at least the end of August.”
Ms Levine said continued lockdowns in Queensland, Victoria and NSW through August were likely to cause further economic damage.
“Nevertheless, the increasing support provided by federal and state governments to businesses and employees forced to deal with the lockdowns and border closures is having an impact,” she said.
“The July 2021 unemployment estimate of 9.7 per cent is well down from July 2020 (12.5 per cent) and during the remainder of 2020 unemployment only dipped below 12 per cent once – after Victoria’s long second lockdown ended.
“Of course, the key to ending the lockdowns is a high enough vaccination coverage of the population to prevent the spread of COVID-19 getting out of control. The latest projections show Australia is not likely to reach the target of at least 70 per cent of adults fully vaccinated until around the end of the year.”
Ms Levine said continued financial support for business would be the key to surviving the next four months of ongoing snap lockdowns, which were “now the preferred policy response” for dealing with the Delta variant of COVID-19.
