Portfolio — 26 June 2026

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Amanda Rishworth used two media releases on 25 June to front both the May labour market data and a pair of new industrial policy measures, combining a strong headline employment result with the announcement of structural reforms to the construction sector. Unemployment fell to 4.4% in May, with 40,300 additional Australians entering employment to bring the total workforce to 14.7 million [TA-260625-dewr-35ea4a146664 TA-260625-dewr-50db1903a818].

The releases also noted that Australia's employment growth has outpaced all major advanced economies — a comparative framing the minister deployed alongside the domestic figures. Youth unemployment dropped 0.6 percentage points to 10.4%, women's unemployment declined, and labour-force participation held near a record high of 66.7% [TA-260625-dewr-35ea4a146664].

The more forward-looking signal came on the regulatory side. Rishworth announced a national construction code currently under consultation, alongside a secure-jobs procurement rule that would allow the Commonwealth to give preference to enterprise agreements when awarding contracts [TA-260625-dewr-50db1903a818]. The construction code announcement referenced the National Construction Industry Forum as its governance vehicle and included language around workplaces being free from coercion and intimidation — signalling that conduct standards in the sector are a live concern for the portfolio, not merely wages and conditions.

The procurement rule is the more immediate policy mechanism: it would attach enterprise-agreement preference to Commonwealth contracting, potentially reshaping how federal construction work is tendered.

Both releases sit within a cost-of-living narrative the government has been building since the Fair Work Commission's wage increase announcement on 23 June. The minister's framing pairs strong employment outcomes with the argument that tax-cut measures will offset the cost-of-living impact of the wage decision — a dual-track message designed to present wage growth and household relief as complementary rather than competing pressures.

The convergence of unemployment, participation, and youth employment data across both releases reinforces that the portfolio is using the May figures as a broad-based endorsement of the government's labour market settings, rather than leading with any single indicator.