Finance Minister Fredenberg announced that economic was officially in recession at a news conference
The new crown pneumonia crisis has plunged Australia's economic into the worst recession since World War II, with gross domestic product (GDP) plummeting in the second quarter worse than expected.
Prime Minister Morrison (Scott Morrison) said today was "Australia's disastrous day" after the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported a 7 per cent drop in gross domestic product in June ".
It follows a 0.3% contraction in gross domestic product in the March quarter when the outbreak began in Australia and major cities began to close. Technically, economic contracted for two consecutive quarters and was seen as a recession. And it means Australia is now in its first economic recession in 30 years.
The local economic division had expected the official economic figures to be very bad today, with the June quarter estimated to have plummeted by 6 percent and the annual decline of 5.2 percent, but the actual figures were worse than anyone feared, reflecting not only the biggest quarterly economic decline since World War II, but also the worst annual economic decline.
'GDP figures are heartbreaking ,' Mr. Friedenberg (Josh Frydenberg) said at an afternoon press conference.
Whether it's keynes' tour operators, melbourne's craftsmen, adelaide's coffee shop staff, or sydney's stewardess,, he says, they' ve been hit hard by the COVID-19 epidemic.
"The way forward will be long, the way forward will be difficult, and the way forward will be bumpy ," Friedenberg said of the future of recovery from the epidemic crisis. "
Yet he stressed that without the federal government's JobKeeper employment salary compensation scheme, more than 700,000 Australian workers would be unemployed.
Mr morrison, in parliament speech, was optimistic that australia's economic would emerge from the crisis and recover as it reopened.
"Australia will recover, Australian economic will grow again, jobs will reappear, and government recovery plan is based on the resilience and strength of the Australian people and entrepreneurship ," he said. "
The GDP fell 7 per cent in the June quarter, more than three times as much as 2 per cent in the previous three economic recessions after World War II.
The record decline was mainly due to the private sector being hit hard by quarantine closures and restrictions. Private sector demand did not collapse significantly during the June quarter, resulting in economic losses of 7.9 per cent, while strong growth in Australia's exports of goods and government increased fiscal spending increased economic by 1 per cent and 0.6 per cent, respectively.
Household expenditure dropped by 12.1 per cent during the period. With few places to spend this time, the household savings rate jumped 6 percent to 19.8 percent.
For his part, finance minister flettenberg claimed that the response to the recession caused by the outbreak crisis had government a huge "fiscal firepower ".
