• The coronavirus pandemic has affected employment across New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania the most, according to new figures from Roy Morgan.
• It found people in Tasmania have experienced the most changes in their employment, followed by Victoria and New South Wales.
• These changes range from working from home to having hours reduced to being made redundant.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Employment across New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania has been struck the hardest during the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research from Roy Morgan.

The market research company found 67% of working Australians have had “a change to their employment” due to the pandemic, including having their hours cut down, having to work from home, or being stood down.

It found that in May 2020, 880,000 working Australians had their pay reduced, which increased to 960,000 in July. And there were 490,000 workers made redundant in May, compared to 620,000 in July.

The research involved online and phone interviews with a nationally representative range of 3,863 working Aussies. It found New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania experienced the most impact due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to Roy Morgan, 74% of Tasmanian workers have had a change in their employment, followed by Victoria (71%) and New South Wales (70%).

Regional Victoria returned to stage three lockdowns, while Melbourne was placed under stage four restrictions to reduce the number of coronavirus cases in the state.

On the flip side, the states that dealt with the pandemic more effectively had less of an impact, including Western Australia and Queensland (both 62%) and South Australia (57%).

“The second wave of the coronavirus crisis since June has been far more deadly than the first, but heavily concentrated in Victoria rather than felt equally around the nation,” Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said in a statement.

“However, there have been significant spillover effects into NSW with hundreds of new cases linked to Victoria and the renewed outbreak has led other states such as Tasmania, Queensland, and Western Australia to keep their borders closed.”

Working from home was the most common employment change across Victoria and New South Wales, but more people in New South Wales had their work hours reduced (22%) than in Victoria (21%). Across both states, one in six people said their business has either slowed down or stopped completely.

Workers in Victoria are also more likely than those in New South Wales to have been stood down for a while, have their pay reduced, or be made redundant.

Levine added that while the federal government has extended JobKeeper and JobSeeker, many Australians and businesses are “facing an uncertain future”.

“It’s important to understand that when the JobKeeper wage subsidy ends in April 2021 many employees that have had a changed employment situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic may well find themselves out of work as their employer adjusts to the economic reality without an ongoing wage subsidy,” Levine said.

“The Federal Budget set to be delivered by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in early October must provide a clear roadmap for the Australian economy to navigate the next few years including cutting excessive regulations, providing proper incentives for businesses to invest in growth and new employees and reducing high penalty rates that discourage businesses from opening on weekends and public holidays.”

The figures come after Australia’s unemployment rate rose to 7.5% in July, with more than one million Australians being unemployed.

States including Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT have also been introducing paid pandemic leave schemes for workers who have been instructed to self isolate because of the coronavirus. One of the conditions, however, is that you aren’t already receiving any other income support such as JobKeeper.

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