Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Friday 3 May 2019
13 reasons why voting for Liberal or Nationals candidates on 18 May 2019 may not be the best choice you could make
The McKell Institute, April 2019, Fork
in the Road: The impact of the two major parties’ penalty rate policies in the
2019 Federal Election:
Key National Findings
Finding 1: Throughout the three year period of the
forthcoming 46th parliament, workers will collectively receive $2.87
billion less in penalty
rate pay under a re-elected Coalition Government than a Labor Government, when
factoring in each party’s policy preferences.
Finding 2: Nationally, workers in the fast food industry
are expected to receive $303.8 million less in penalty rate pay under a re-elected Coalition Government
than under a Labor Government over the life of the forthcoming parliament.
Finding 3: Nationally, workers in the hospitality industry
are expected to receive $837.15 million less in penalty rate pay under a re-elected Coalition Government
than under a Labor Government over the life of the forthcoming parliament.
Finding 4: Nationally, workers in the retail industry
are expected to receive $1.64 billion less in penalty rate pay under a re-elected Coalition Government
than under a Labor Government over the life of the forthcoming parliament.
Finding
5: Nationally, workers in the pharmacy industry are expected to receive $84.86
million less in penalty
rate pay under a re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor Government
over the life of the forthcoming parliament.
Finding 6: Over the life of the forthcoming parliament,
workers in Queensland are collectively expected to receive $573.7
million less in penalty
rate pay under a re-elected Coalition Government’s than under a Labor
Government.
Finding 7: Over the life of the forthcoming parliament,
workers in New South Wales are expected to receive $899.26 million less in penalty rate pay under a
re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor Government.
Finding 8: Over the life of the forthcoming parliament,
workers in the ACT are expected to receive $45.69 million less in penalty rate pay under a
re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor Government.
Finding 9: Over the life of the forthcoming parliament,
workers in Victoria are expected to receive $750.74 million less in penalty rate pay under a
re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor Government.
Finding 10: Over the life of the forthcoming parliament,
workers in Tasmania are expected to receive $65.02 million less in penalty rate pay under a
re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor Government.
Finding 11: Over the life of the forthcoming parliament,
workers in South Australia are expected to receive $209.65 million less in penalty rate pay under a
re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor Government.
Finding 12: Over the life of the
forthcoming parliament, workers in Western Australia are expected to
receive $299.52 million less in
penalty rate pay under a re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor
Government.
Finding 13: Over the life of the forthcoming parliament, workers in
Northern Territory are expected to receive $23.56 million less in penalty rate pay under a
re-elected Coalition Government than under a Labor Government.
Labels:
elections 2019,
jobs,
statistics,
wages
Monday 11 March 2019
If as an ordinary worker you feel like you have been financially marching backwards for the last five and a half years then you probably have
“Backing
business generates higher wages, jobs & growth.” [Australian
Treasurer & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh
Frydenberg, Twitter, 8 March
2019]
Such a confident quote from a Coalition Treasurer in campaign mode - but is it true?
According to the Dept. of Prime Minister & Cabinet/ASIC at the end of the period 30 July 2013 to 31 June 2014, there were est.2.6 million actively trading businesses in Australia and, according to the ABS by the end of 2017-18 there were 2.3 million actively trading businesses in the market sector in Australia.
Despite the Morrison Government alleging that by November 2018 it had created 1.2 million more jobs since September 2013, it's easy enough to see that in January 2019 the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was only 0.6% lower than it was when the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Coalition Government came to power in September 2013.
Additionally, it would appear that the ratio of unemployed persons to job vacancies in late 2013 was est. 20 unemployed individuals for very 1 job vacancy and by December 2018 this stood at an est. 15.57 unemployed individuals for every 1 job vacancy.
So what about wages growth?
So with little structural damage to our financial institutions or the industry & business sectors, the national economy should be chugging along nicely.
By now ordinary workers should be reaping the rewards for their productivity - as labour input to market sector multifactor productivity increased by 3.0% overall on quality
adjusted hours worked basis in 2017-18 (while capital input only grew by 2.0%).
The biggest labor input increases occurred in Administrative and Support Services (8.2%), Manufacturing (3.8%), Accommodation and Food Services (3.7%), and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (3.7%).
The biggest labor input increases occurred in Administrative and Support Services (8.2%), Manufacturing (3.8%), Accommodation and Food Services (3.7%), and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (3.7%).
According to the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in the December Quarter 2018; Compensation of
employees increased by 0.9% nationally.
In the Australian Capital Territory the compensation
increase was 2.1%, in Tasmania 1.6%, Queensland 1.5%, Victoria 1.4%, New South Wales
0.7%, and South Australia 0.1%. However compensation growth went backwards in Western
Australia at -0.2% and Northern Territory -0.7%.
Also according to the ABS; The
Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 per cent in the December quarter 2018. This followed a rise of
0.4 per cent in the September quarter, a rise of 0.4% in the June quarter and a 0.4% rise in the March quarter 2018.
It doesn't take a genius to see that nationally the effect of that December national compensation increase was actually 0.9% minus 0.5% CPI equalling 0.4% when it came to how far those few dollars in wage increase would stretch the weekly pay packet.
Why is low wages growth occurring? Well according to the Minister for Finance and the Public Service & Liberal Senator for Western Australia Mathias Cormann it is deliberate Morrison Government policy to suppress wages growth.
Why is low wages growth occurring? Well according to the Minister for Finance and the Public Service & Liberal Senator for Western Australia Mathias Cormann it is deliberate Morrison Government policy to suppress wages growth.
The result of this ongoing wages suppression? A continuation of the downward progression of disposable income and rising household debt, as illustrated in this graph from 2015 onwards.Low wage growth is no accident. Watch @MathiasCormann confirm that. pic.twitter.com/z8fGGCO52Z— Australian Unions (@unionsaustralia) March 8, 2019
ABC News, 9 September 2018
|
BACKGROUND
Business Insider, 4 March 2019:
The ABS on Monday (4
March) released its Business Indicators results for December 2018,
which showed trend growth in company gross operating profits at a healthy 9.6
per cent over the year to the December quarter.
Seasonally adjusted,
that figure was even higher, hitting double digits at 10.5 per cent.
The figures were boosted
by a strong performance that quarter, with trend growth up by 0.9 of a
percentage point on the September quarter, or by 0.8 of a percentage
point when seasonally adjusted.
Chief executives and
chief financial officers don’t get bonuses for increasing their companies’
labour costs – so they try not to.
Chairpersons and boards
are not clapped on their collective back by institutional investors for
devoting a greater share of revenue to wages – so they don’t.
And the cumulative
effect of those simple realities is now unavoidable: Years of real, take-home wages
going backwards while corporate profits increased, have meant household
consumption is stalling and taking the economy with it.
Yet such is the myopic
nature of corporate focus, business leaders react with horror to the idea that employees
need a bigger share of the pie.
The business lobby
claims wage increases aren’t possible without productivity trade-offs – but
that’s after the productivity increases of recent years going overwhelmingly to
higher profits.
Quite simply, the key
business lobby groups have little credibility. They claimed reducing penalty
rates would increase employment – it didn’t. They claimed cutting company tax
would increase wages: It hasn’t and it won’t.
Household consumption
accounts for more than half of the economy. According to the ABS, and nicely
reported by Greg Jericho with helpful graphs, real household disposable income per capita
has fallen back to where it was in 2010.
“Average compensation
per employee” grew by only 1.5 per cent in 2018 – an even worse result than the
better-publicised ABS wages index.
It’s only population
growth that’s providing what little retail sales and GDP growth we have….
The Fair Work Commission
(FWC) increased the minimum wage by 3.5 per cent last July – against the
arguments of the business lobby – and by 3.3 per cent in July 2017.
That
increase of 6.8 per cent barely registered on the various measures of wages
growth.
not wanting to pay
workers more, is a little like the “Paradox of Thrift” – it makes sense for an
individual in uncertain times to save and not spend as much, but if everyone
does it, uncertain times turn into bad times.
As argued here previously, business is holding a very
determined wages strike.
Corporate leaders don’t need FWC permission to do it,
they just have to hang together to keep a lid on wage rises. In the process,
they’re shooting themselves in the foot.
For the Coalition
government, the result is a record of economic failure.
Tuesday 26 February 2019
On the subject of income, welfare support and spending
Will negative wage growth, the acute poverty of jobless people combined with the avarice of employers and punitive federal government policy intesect to create a perect storm which will see household spending fall this year?
Current state of play......
Current state of play......
ABC
News, 23
February 2019:
Rather, Dr Lowe saw
stagnant household incomes is a much bigger threat to consumer spending, and
thus to the 60 per cent of the economy based on it.
"Aggregate
household income used to grow at 6 per cent, it's growing sub-3," he told
the MPs on the committee.
"That's a big
difference, and you accumulate that over three or four years and income is 8,
10 or 12 per cent lower than it otherwise would have been.
"Many people
borrowed assuming their incomes would grow at the old rate and they haven't.
"They're having
more difficulty, they've got less free cash and so they can't spend, so this is
why I've put so much emphasis on the need for a pick-up in wage growth."
Dr Lowe told the
committee he has been using speeches to try and lift wage expectations, while
the RBA has been keeping interest rates low and stable for an extended period
of time to relieve the pressure on households.
The RBA governor said,
while the strategy seems to be working — with unemployment down at 5 per cent
and wage growth starting to pick up from recent lows — he could use a bit more
help from the Fair Work Commission and employers.
Fair Work last year
awarded a 3.5 per cent pay rise for those on the minimum wage and linked
awards, and Dr Lowe said that was a "sensible and right policy" and a
similar increase this year "makes a lot of sense".
"If workers get
their normal long-run share of that [productivity increase] then their real
wages should rise by 1 per cent a year," he said.
Financial
Review, 7 February 2019:
Consumer anxiety has
reached its highest level in three years, with households spending less on
discretionary items as they worry about their finances and the future.
The National Australia
Bank consumer anxiety index rose to 62 points in the December quarter, and
close to 40 per cent of those surveyed said they had experienced financial
hardship during the quarter – the highest level in two years.
Households said they had
pulled back their spending on things like travel, eating out and entertainment
due to heightened anxiety about their financial conditions.
The primary causes of
anxiety through the December quarter were how to finance one's retirement and
how to provide for one's family's future....
"What's happening
here is you haven't got much wages growth, you're paying off utilities, you're
paying off debt, and you're doing things that you have to do."
Mr Oster said after
doing all those things, there wasn't much money left for households.
Anxiety about job
security reached its highest level since 2016, and 50 per cent of homes in
hardship found their financial position impacted by high utility bills.
The Guardian, 17 September 2018:
A proposal to increase
Newstart allowance by $75 a week would lead to a boost in consumer spending,
creating more than 10,000 jobs and lifting wages, a new report shows.
The report by Deloitte Access Economics, released on Monday morning, said the
policy to increase the incomes of more than 700,000 people by $10.71 a day
would cost the federal budget $3.3bn a year.
But a “prosperity
dividend” would see the government collect an extra $1bn in taxes as a result
of a stronger economy, and the proposal was also projected to create 12,000
extra jobs in 2020-21 and increase wages by 0.2%.
It comes amid debate
about the rate of Newstart, which at $272.90 for a single person has not risen
in real terms in more than two decades. It will increase by $2.20 this week as
a result of indexation.
The Australian Council
of Social Service (Acoss), business groups, unions and a former prime minister,
John Howard, have all argued for an increase, but the government has so far
dismissed those calls….
The bulk of the economic
benefits from increasing the payment would go to the bottom 5% of Australian
income earners, who would receive “six times the dollars going to the highest
income quintile”. The “poorest of the poor” would receive 28 times the relative
boost to their disposable incomes, than the top income quintile.
Regional areas “most in
need of help” would be key winners from increased spending….
The current rate is the
equivalent to living on $38.99 a day. The report said a single person who also
receives the maximum rent assistance and the energy supplement would be living
on about $49.24 a day.
Previous research has
shown that those on Newstart live on as little as $17 a day after their housing expenses and
bills.
ABC
NEWS, 9
September 2018:
It may not have garnered
the same attention as the surprisingly strong second-quarter GDP growth, but an
equally striking fact in last week's national accounts was household savings
had just hit a post-GFC low.
It is not a new phenomenon.
The household saving ratio — or the ratio of households' net saving to
disposable income — has been shrinking since 2014.
What makes the latest
figure uncomfortable is that there is now little fat left to trim, and on
current trends households will be spending more they earn.
The ability of the
Australian economy to keep growing in the face of a number of challenges in
recent years owes a fair bit to the savings so prudently built up after the
sobering experience of the GFC.
As JP Morgan's Tom
Kennedy points out, the persistent decline in savings since 2014 has been an
important part of Australia's real GDP growth performance, helping offset some
of the spending drag associated with record low wages growth and an
unemployment rate that has yet to fire up wages.
While the correlation
between savings and spending is far from perfect, Mr Kennedy has drilled down
into the figures, and is worried.
Labels:
cost of living,
jobs,
wages,
welfare payments
Friday 25 January 2019
Inequality writ large in the NSW hospitality industry as a company grows wealthy by denying a fair rate of pay to its workforce
Multimillionaire
Justin Hemmes comes from a privileged background having inherited the bulk of his wealth
rather than earned it independently of the family company.
Yet as CEO
of M.R.V.L. Investments Pty Ltd since March 2015
at which point the Merivale portfolio was said to contain more
than 50 restaurants, bars, pubs and hotels in Sydney, with an estimated value
of more than $1 billion he kept the family company’s wages bill so low for est. 3,000 employees - lawfully so
under a Howard Government Workchoices-era collective agreement - that words fail me.
Merivale.com, retrieved 22 January 2019:
Owned and run by the
Hemmes family for over 60 years, Merivale began as an iconic fashion house
started by John and Merivale Hemmes. Merivale’s fashionable beginnings were
soon followed by a venture into hospitality, opening a Thai tea café within
their Sydney CBD fashion building in 1970. From here, Merivale’s hospitality
roots were firmly planted.
Merivale is now led by
CEO Justin Hemmes, whose creativity and knack for pushing the boundaries has
made Merivale what it is today. Hemmes has become a pioneer within the
Australian hospitality industry, growing the ever-expanding Merivale portfolio
to over 70 brands and venues.
Financial
Review, 23
May 2018:
Prominent Sydney
hotelier Justin Hemmes has ridden the property boom all the way to this year's
Rich List.
Hemmes and his family
have amassed a $951 million fortune via the ownership of 70 pubs, hotels,
restaurants and venues in and around Sydney, including The Ivy on George Street
in the heart of the CBD.
He joins the biggest
group of Rich Listers, property magnates, who this year account for 51 of the
200 names. Hemmes also just misses being among the record 76 billionaires on the list.
ABC
News, 12
November 2018:
The drinking
and dining empire led by high-profile Sydney hotelier Justin Hemmes is facing a
push to kill off a workplace agreement that some current and former staff say
denies them weekend penalty rates……
A former Merivale staff
member, Maddie Lucre, raised concerns about being denied weekend penalty rates.
Ms Lucre worked at the
Coogee Pavilion from January 2016 until July this year. With the assistance of
United Voice, where she works in an admin role, Ms Lucre made a claim against
Merivale for the weekend and public holiday amounts she claimed was owed to her
under the company's agreement.
She was offered
$2,706.72, the amount she claimed she was owed, on the condition that she sign
a non-disclosure agreement. No admissions of fault were made by Merivale.
"I know that if I
keep my mouth shut then no-one's going to find out about this," Ms Lucre
told 7.30.
"Merivale has never
been held to account for the fact that they are potentially underpaying
people."
Financial
Review, 21
January 2019:
Merivale is reviewing
the viability of its business practices due to the axing of a WorkChoices-era
enterprise agreement that gave it a significant commercial advantage in the
industry.
The Fair Work Commission
on Monday terminated Merivale's long-expired 2007 EA that allowed the
hospitality giant to pay some 3000 workers below the award – more than 20 per
cent below in some cases – by not applying overtime or full penalty rates for
almost a decade.
The decision, which will
not take effect until March to give Merivale time to transition to the award,
is the result of United Voice taking action on behalf of two casuals who
complained they were missing out on thousands of dollars a year……
Ms Tones, quoted by the
union's submissions, said that 71 per cent of the company's workforce were
casuals and 48 per cent worked on some form of visa.
Under the agreement,
casuals were not paid full evening, weekend and public holiday rates or even
overtime.
The Fair Work Commission having found on 21 January this year it would not be contrary to the public interest to terminate Merivale Employee Collective Agreement 2007 which had passed its nominal expiry date of 21 December 2012, Merivale now appears to be hinting that if it were to pay proper award rates to all its workforce it might have to close one or more businesses because it may not be able to afford a higher wages bill.
Again, words fail me.
NOTE: Justin Hemmes joined Twitter in March 2010 as @justinhemmes. Although he seems to have tired of the account sometime in 2014 it is still active and Twitter will allow civilised comments on this site.
Labels:
fair go,
hospitality industry,
inequality,
jobs,
wages
Wednesday 2 January 2019
State of Play: NSW North Coast Employment Opportunities
It's a brand new year but in regional New South Wales the old issues followed us past midnight on 31 December 2018.
Employment opportunities - where will our unemployed and underemployed people find a job in 2019 and beyond?
This is how the old year ended.....
List
of summary data inNorth Coast
|
|
Data
Name
|
Data
Value
|
Unemployment
Rate (15+):
|
6.1%
|
Unemployed
(15+):
|
7,000
|
Total
jobactive Caseload (15+):
|
10,643
|
Youth
jobactive Caseload (15-24):
|
1,779
|
Mature
Age jobactive Caseload (50+):
|
3,562
|
The future appears to be a mixed bag for the NSW North Coast over the next twenty-four years.
At which point the population may have reached somewhere in the vicinity of 400,000 residents.
However, it is expected there will be a drop in employment levels across Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing on the North Coast.
While Manufacturing only grows slightly in the Richmond-Tweed region and remains static same elsewhere.
Wholesale Trade remains steady in Tweed-Richmond with up to 300 new jobs, but is projected to go backwards in Coffs Harbour-Grafton over the next 24 years.
Retail Trade is predicted to grow modestly across the North Coast, with 900 new jobs predicted.
The Accommodation and Food Services sector is expected to show unspectacular growth right across the North Coast regions with only 900 additional jobs.
Administrative and Support Services employment is projected to rise - but only by 700 jobs up to 2023 and Public Administration & Safety are only expected to add 300 jobs over that same time period.
The Education sector is expected to grow by 700 jobs.
Information, Media & Telecommunications is expected to grow by 8.4% but it will take 24 years to achieve this small improvement on May 2018 figures and barely represents an est. 100 jobs overall.
Financial and Insurance sector employment opportunities are expected to diminish across the regions, but there are expected to be 500 more jobs in the Professional, Scientific & Technical Services.
Transport, Postal & Warehousing employment is predicted to remain at near present levels.
The Mining sector is not expected to grow past May 2018 levels on the North Coast from the Clarence Valley up to the NSW-Queensland border taking in all seven Northern Rivers local government areas.
However Construction employment is expected to grow by 15-16% by 2023 across the region. This represents est. 3,000 more jobs above May 2018 numbers.
Healthcare & Social Assistance is also predicted to grow by 3,900-4,000 available positions by 2023.
See the following Labour Market Information Portal links for further employment projections for regional Australia, including the NSW North Coast:
Employment projections
for the five years to May 2023
Each year, the
Department of Jobs and Small Business produces employment projections by
industry, occupation, skill level and region for the following five-year
period. These employment projections are designed to provide a guide to the
future direction of the labour market, however, like all such exercises, they
are subject to an inherent degree of uncertainty.
The 2018 employment
projections are based on the forecasted and projected total employment growth
rates published in the 2018-19 Budget, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) data (June
2018) for total employment, and the quarterly detailed LFS data (May 2018) for
industry employment data.
Labels:
jobs,
New South Wales,
North Coast,
unemployment
Tuesday 11 December 2018
Just three months out from a state election and the NSW Berejiklian Government decides to introduce a new punative public housing policy guaranteed to upset a good many voters
In
2016 est. 37,715 people in New South Wales were recorded as
homeless on Census Night.
The following year the
NSW Berejiklian Coalition Government had a public
housing stock total of 110,221 dwellings and an est. 60,000 people
on the Dept. of Housing 2017 waiting list.
Below is the state government’s answer to the effects of decreasing
public housing stock and federal Coalition Government cuts to public
housing funding allocations to the states - introduce a new initiative under the 'Opportunity
Pathways' program which will cut the housing waiting list by increasing eligibility restrictions, privatise service delivery to certain categories of public housing applicants and tenants in order to ensure that vulnerable individuals and families are discouraged from seeking housing assistance.
The
Daily Telegraph,
7 December 2018, p.2:
Public housing applicants
will have to get a job if they want a taxpayer-funded home under a tough new
test to be introduced in NSW.
The state government is
overhauling the public housing system by stopping residents who
languish on welfare for decades feeling entitled to a cheap home, paid for by
the taxpayer, for their entire life.
Currently less than a
quarter of social housing tenants are in the workforce. There are
about 55,000 people on the public housing waitlist in NSW, and
under the new program they will be able to skip the queue if they agree to get
a job.
But if they get into the
home then fail to get a job or maintain work they will be booted from the
property.
Once they are secure in
a job they will then move into the private rental market and out of the welfare
system.
Social Housing Minister
Pru Goward said the program will “help break the cycle of disadvantage”.
“This is about equipping
tenants with the skills they need to not only obtain a job, but keep it over
the longer term and achieve their full potential,” she said.
“We also want to set to
a clear expectation that social housing is not for life and, for
those who can work, social housing should be used as a stepping stone to
moving into the private rental market.” The new program will be trialled in
Punchbowl and Towradgi, near Wollongong, for three years across 20 properties.
Its success will be evaluated over this time and it’s likely the program will
be expanded across the state.
Homes will be leased for
six months at a time, with renewal dependent on the resident maintaining their
job or education, such as TAFE, and meeting agreed goals within the plan.
RFT ID FACS.18.30
RFT
Type Expression
of Interest for Specific Contracts
Published 23-Aug-2018
Closes 27-Sep-2018 2:00pm
Agency FACS Central Office
Tender Details
The NSW Department of
Family and Community Services (FACS) is seeking Expressions of Interest (EOI)
from non-government organisatons with the capability to deliver the Opportunity
Pathways program.
Opportunity Pathways is
designed for social housing tenants and their household members, approved
social housing applicants and clients receiving Rent Choice subsidies who
aspire and have the capacity to, with the appropriate support, gain, retain and
increase employment.
The program is voluntary
and uses a person-centred case management approach to provide wrap-around
support and facilitate participant access to services to achieve economic and
housing independence (where appropriate).
The objectives of the
program are to:
assist
participants to gain, retain or increase employment, by accessing supports and
practical assistance, and by participating in education, training and work
opportunities
encourage
and support participants to positively exit social housing or Rent Choice
subsidies to full housing independence, to reduce their reliance on governement
assistance, where appropriate
Please refer to the
Program Guidelines for further details.
Opportunity Pathways
will run for three years and delivered across NSW in those locations where a
need and service gaps are identified.
The program will be
delivered by one or more providers following an EOI and Select Tender.
Location
NSW Regions: Far
North Coast, Mid North Coast, New England, Central Coast, Hunter,
Cumberland/Prospect, Nepean, Northern Sydney, Inner West, South East Sydney,
South West Sydney, Central West, Orana/Far West, Riverina/Murray, Illawarra,
Southern Highlands
Estimated Value
From $0.00 to $36,100,000.00
RFT Type
Expression of Interest
for Specific Contracts - An invitation for Expression of Interest (EOI) for
pre-registration of prospective tenderers for a specific work or service.
Applicants are initially evaluated against published selection criteria, and
those who best meet the required criteria are invited to Tender (as tender type
Pre-Qualified/Invited). [my yellow highlighting]
As of June
2018 in NSW there were 200,564 people registered with Centrelink whose income
was Newstart Allowance and, by September there were only est. 82,400
job vacancies available as the Internet Vacancy Index had been
falling since April 2018. The number of job vacancies were still
falling in October 2018 to 66,000 job vacancies.
Just three months out from a state election and it doesn't appear that the Berejiklian Cabinet or other Liberal and Nationals members of the NSW Parliament have thought this new policy through to its logical conclusion.
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