The number of employed people in Australia had fallen by 17,600 on this day in 1992, with some 6100 people on related government allowances in Canberra.
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A story on the front page of The Canberra Times attributed the loss, in part, to "the depressing trend from full-time to part-time employment continuing".
Since August that year, the ACT labour force grew by 1100 people to 164,500. Of the new labour force members, 500 found jobs and 600 became unemployed.
"Of course unemployment at 10.9 [per cent] is still too high, clearly too high," then-prime minister Paul Keating said. Although, he saw encouraging signs for growth; particularly as the retail trade was trending upwards.
Then-employment spokesman of the opposition, John Howard, said more people had withdrawn from the workforce rather than fallen out of it.
"The anecdotal evidence I keep receiving is of companies still continuing to lower staff, so I'm not confident it has peaked," he said.
