RBA says stopping immigration would damage productivity

RBA governor Philip Lowe said at a parliamentary hearing that the closed borders had a “marginal” impact on bringing the jobless rate down, but stressed that stopping immigration was also damaging because businesses prefer workers with specialist skills.

“That’s affecting the productive capacity,” said Dr Lowe.

Dr Lowe said he was surprised by the resilience of the economy. “We implemented policies that none of us thought we would ever do, and it has worked,” he said. “Two years into a global pandemic, who would have thought we would be looking at the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years? I certainly didn’t think that.”