Employment can recover from difficult situation: Ling-Stuckey

TREASURER Ian Ling-Stuckey says there’s strong resilience in employment given the most difficult economic times since independence.
In response to claims of about 50,000 job losses, Ling-Stuckey said these contrasted with the 10 per cent fall in employment under the previous government which should have been boom years for the economy.
He said according to Bank of PNG’s quarterly statistics, the formal employment index for 2018 totalled 158.5.
The Treasurer said the latest figure was a slight increase in the index to 159.0.
“It went a bit up and then down in 2019, but as at June 2020, the employment index is slightly stronger than in 2018,” he said.
“The mining employment index has increased from 304.4 in 2018 to 355.3 in June 2020. BPNG figures tell a story of slight growth since 2018 – extraordinary – given the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes.”
Ling-Stuckey said data from the Internal Revenue Commission pointed to modest job growth.
He said personal income tax (PIT) collections were expected to be reduced because of employment losses from Covid-19.
“However, the level of PIT collections is actually increasing from K3.2 bil in 2019 to K3.3 bil in 2020 to an estimated K3.5 bil in 2021.”