The sharp rise in unemployment confirms that the economic shock caused by the coronavirus epidemic will be the most severe in decades and demands a serious rethink of the government’s economic strategy. The unemployment rate has jumped from 5.1 per cent to 7.1 per cent in just three months which represents 205,000 more people on the dole. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a press conference that the data was “heartbreaking”. Bad as the headline unemployment rate is, the real situation is actually worse. The figure does not include hundreds of thousands of people who have given up looking for work entirely or who ... (full story)