Australian multi-millionaire apologises for calling for 50% more unemployment to increase worker productivity

Australian property developer Tim Gurner issued an apology on Thursday after he faced backlash on social media for complaining at a business forum that the Covid pandemic had changed employees' work ethic. Gurner had said "we need to see pain in the economy" and for unemployment to rise by 40-50% to adjust expectations.

Footage of his comments published by the Australian Financial Review on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) were viewed more than 23 million times and sparked a backlash in Australia and abroad.

Gurner said on Thursday he "deeply regrets" his comments, acknowledging they were "deeply insensitive to employees, tradies and families across Australia who are affected by these cost of living pressures and job losses".

On LinkedIn, he said that while they are important conversations to have, his comments "were wrong".

"At the AFR Property Summit this week I made some remarks about unemployment and productivity in Australia that I deeply regret and were wrong.
 
"There are clearly important conversations to have in this environment of high inflation, pricing pressures on housing and rentals due to a lack of supply, and other cost of living issues. My comments were deeply insensitive to employees, tradies and families across Australia who are affected by these cost-of-living pressures and job losses. 

"I want to be clear: I do appreciate that when someone loses their job it has a profound impact on them and their families and I sincerely regret that my words did not convey empathy for those in that situation," Gurner wrote.

Gurner said: "We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40, 50 percent in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around."

"There's been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around... We've got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy."

"Governments around the world are trying to increase unemployment to get that to some sort of normality... We're starting to see less arrogance in the employment market, and that has to continue," he said.

US lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Gurner's comments point out a growing discrepancy between executive and employee pay.

"Reminder that major CEOs have skyrocketed their own pay so much that the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is now at some of the highest levels ever recorded," she wrote.

The data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed net employment rose 64,900 in August from July, when they fell by an upwardly adjusted 1,400. Market forecasts had been for an increase of around 23,000.

The jobless rate held steady at 3.7%, matching forecasts from analysts, while the participation rate surged to 67.0%, the highest since records began in 2013.