Roy Morgan surveyed around 7,000 Australians through September and October about the changes they had experienced in their employment since March.
The new study has determined around 5.9 million Australians (28 per cent) had their employment negatively impacted by COVID – with 51 per cent of them making changes to their personal finances as a result. Including those who did not experience employment changes, 27.3 per cent
Such adaptations included reducing housing and insurance payments or utility bills and cutting back on debt repayment, but early access to superannuation was noted to be the single largest financial change.
The option to withdraw up to $20,000 in retirement savings was taken up by 9.4 per cent of all respondents, but for those who experienced negative employment changes such as cut hours or being stood down, the figure almost doubled to 18.5 per cent.
Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine noted that Roy Morgan’s unemployment measure has projected there is around 2.96 million people either unemployed or underemployed – an increase of 800,000 since before the pandemic. However, the estimate has decreased by 183,000 from October to November.
All the while, government economic stimuli is now being progressively withdrawn, Ms Levine noted.
“However, the full impact of COVID-19 on Australians and the economy at large will only be possible to properly assess when the extensive government support is over and the special arrangements made by service providers come to an end during 2021,” she said.
In addition to early super, other steps taken included seeking a reduction on utility bills (7.1 per cent), obtaining other financial assistance (7 per cent) and putting insurance payments on hold or reducing the repayment amount (5.2 per cent).
For those who had seen a negative impact to their work, the proportions increased substantially, up to 12.9 per cent for a reduction on utilities, 1.7 per cent for seeking other financial assistance and 10.8 per cent for placing on hold or reducing insurance repayments.
However, banks have reported that more than 70 per cent of people who had paused their mortgage payments have resumed.
People living in capital cities were also seen to be more affected than in rural areas, at 29.1 per cent against 23.9 per cent, respectively – in part due to the lockdowns in cities.
Unsurprisingly, Victoria, which had the longest lockdown, had the highest proportion of respondents making changes to their personal finances (29.7 per cent), followed by Queensland (27.3 per cent), South Australia (27 per cent), NSW (26.5 per cent) and Western Australia (26.3 per cent).
