Warrnambool's unemployment has remained low and steady during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the city continuing to have fewer people without jobs than most Victorian regional cities.
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The latest localised ABS data for the city shows it had an unemployment rate of about 3.6 per cent in March this year, about at the same level as 12 months earlier.
The data is for a period before the end of coronavirus stimulus JobKeeper, but local employment agencies say there appears not to be higher unemployment since.
Warrnambool City Council growth director Andrew Paton said the city's unemployment rate reached 9.8 per cent in the late 1990s but remained between 3.5 and 4 per cent in the past five years.
"Our city's economic diversity continues to be a strength," Mr Paton said.
He said the accommodation and hospitality sectors still faced challenges, and pointed out the statistics masked a potential for underemployment and youth unemployment to be higher.
WDEA Works chief executive officer Tom Scarborough said the stability in the unemployment rate during coronavirus was due to communities supporting the local economy.
"If I could put it in one word, it would be goodwill," he said.
Mr Scarborough said the agency had not recorded more people seeking jobs as a result of JobKeeper ending.
"I don't want to underestimate the impact; there are small businesses that have gone under through this," he said.
"(But) we've noticed with each shutdown it's getting better and better. People bounce back to employment."
However, some employers are reporting the tight labour market has made it challenging to find staff.
Hotel Warrnambool's Steve Philpot said the business had been searching for six months to find skilled staff after losing some employees during lockdowns.
"Internationals who are not available made up a bit of our workforce, so that's gone," Mr Philpot said.
"People obviously left the industries they were in - not just ours - and changed the way they lived."
Unemployment for regional Victoria in March was 4.7 per cent, up from 3.9 per cent before the pandemic.
Cities such as Ballarat, Bendigo, Traralgon and Shepparton continue to have higher unemployment than Warrnambool.
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Jackson Graham
Jackson is a reporter for The Standard.
Jackson is a reporter for The Standard.
