Jobs in NDIS Are ‘Real Jobs’: Treasurer Backs Growth Figures

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has defended his government against criticism that as high as 40 percent of the million new jobs it boasts of creating during its first term are in the taxpayer-backed care sector.
“Obviously, as the economy recovers, we want to see more jobs created in the private sector,” he told ABC Radio National, “But we need to recognise as well that care economy jobs are real jobs. I completely reject this sense that it’s only a real job if it’s not in the care economy.
“In the context of our ageing population and all of the needs that we have, we want to see care economy workers respected. We are paying them more. We don’t want to see them respected less or paid less,” Chalmers said.
“And that seems to be the approach taken by our critics, and there’s a real snobbiness at the core of that critique, which says that if you work in the care economy, that’s not a real job. It is a real job, we value it, we are paying people appropriately.”
The Scheme currently costs the government $49 billion a year and is expanding at about 20 percent per year, making it the fastest-growing item on the federal budget.
While the sector breakdown for the second half of this year won’t be available until early 2025, the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirmed that half of the 209,000 jobs filled in the six months to June 30 were classified as public sector.