Even as the New South Wales government prepares to protest against the carbon tax people took to the streets in a weekend rally to support the tax. The carbon tax is seen as a price for pollution and the people want it to be implemented even as the mining industry screams that it will result in loss of twenty thousand plus jobs.
As per Professor Bruce Chapman the impact of the carbon tax on jobs in the mining industry will be so small that it will be invisible. The professor who is the president of the Economics Society of Australia and director of policy at the Australian National University's Crawford school of government, clarified the situation in a report entitled How Many Jobs is 23,510 Really?
As per Professor Chapman’s report 36% of people in mining are inflows that have arrived that year and about 26% are outflows, who will not be there the following year. In numbers about 370,000 people get a job and about 365,000 people lose a job in the mining industry every year. This is the natural attrition in the mining industry.
Once the carbon tax is implemented about 5 people per 10,000 will additionally lose jobs. The number is so trivial that it cannot be reflected effectively in a graph. He added that considering the miniscule effect the carbon price debate should have nothing to do with job loss figures.
A seven year study even showed that of the people who left the mining industry in 2001 not a single person was unemployed the following year. Everyone has had employment in all subsequent years in non mining related jobs. The report added that the misuse of big sounding jobs claims to describe very small effects is a widespread practice giving reference of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.