The Rise Of Australasia

Chapter 878 - 655: Sensation and Action

It is worth mentioning that the infrastructure plan announced by the Australasian Government did not cause as much of a sensation domestically as it did internationally.

After all, the lives of Australasians had not been greatly affected, and the continuous increase in jobs had left them with nothing much to do except to be thankful to the government and Arthur.

But for Europe and the United States, which were tormented by the economic crisis, what did the sudden creation of 2 million jobs represent?

If previously the unemployment figures of Australasia only attracted the attention of the entire world, then now, the infrastructure plan undoubtedly became an attempt to snatch up the unemployed populations across the globe.

The question arises: would the unemployed populations in Europe and the United States be swayed by the Australasian infrastructure plan?

The answer is, of course, they would be.

Under normal circumstances, these construction projects, located thousands of miles away, would not attract Europeans and Americans, unless they had already planned on immigrating.

But now, not to mention a formal plan organized by a national government, as long as there was work that ensured their families would not starve due to a lack of grain, the vast majority of the unemployed would not refuse jobs so far away.

As for the openly declared investment of up to 100 million Australian dollars by Australasia, it also surprised the unemployed populations and other national governments.

After all, the value of the pound and the Australian dollar was still quite strong. How much is 100 million Australian dollars?

Even according to the pre-war ratio, it was nearly 1.25 billion US dollars, 6.25 billion francs.

And now, the exchange rate between the Australian dollar, US dollar, and the franc is even higher, with this sum of money equivalent to 1.5 billion US dollars, 30 billion francs.

There may not be a shortage of countries with such funds, but Australasia is the only one, for the time being, that is willing to put all of it towards infrastructure construction.

This has made the construction plan of Australasia the envy of people from all over the world; the tickets for ocean liners heading to Australia were in high demand, and their prices soared by more than 30% at one point.@@@@

Although there were doubts regarding whether the Australasian Government could actually produce these funds—after all, every country was going through an economic crisis, and even if they had funds, they were reluctant to spend so much on large-scale infrastructure—

Australasia was, nevertheless, a superpower. Moreover, with Arthur’s signature, serving as a guarantee, most people still believed in it.

After all, if such a public plan ultimately fell through, those who signed and published the plan would be held accountable.

Although the domestic response was not as strong as the international one, this did not mean that Australasians did not support the plan.

In fact, the populace generally had a favorable opinion of the construction plan and were grateful to Arthur and the government, often discussing it with smiles on their faces. Your next chapter is on novelhall.Côm

Because of this construction plan, they had ensured that Australasians would never lack work, thereby largely eliminating the impact of the economic crisis.

But these were not the only benefits; amid such a stark contrast in treatment between domestic and international scenarios, the support for Arthur and the government among Australasians kept growing, and the country’s cohesion and national pride were on the rise.

This led to a very strange phenomenon: the economic crisis in Europe and America resulted in major enterprises laying off employees, with unemployment numbers continuously rising.

Meanwhile, because of this infrastructure plan, unemployment numbers in Australasia not only did not increase but were eagerly depleted by the expansion plans of various large factories.

Brought about by this construction plan, various quarries, cement factories, steel factories, and other factories were not only spared from layoffs but were also continuously hiring more employees to expand their production capacity.

This situation posed a stark contrast to employment agencies in Europe and America, inundated by job seekers as actual job vacancies dwindled.

Australasian employment agencies, on the other hand, were surrounded by factories recruiting large numbers of workers, but actual job seekers were scarce in comparison.

After all, with everyone’s job stable, no one was keen on switching jobs frequently.

This was all within Arthur’s expectations. After all, it’s impossible for the government to handle infrastructure development alone. The supply of raw materials and the production of some components are extremely important.

Clearly, these capitalists had discerning eyes; they wouldn’t be the elites of their era otherwise.

Australasia’s unemployment population of less than one hundred thousand hadn’t even had the chance to fill the positions in the construction projects before they were scooped up by the factories that had spotted the opportunity.

However, this posed a new problem: if there weren’t enough unemployed individuals available when the construction projects officially began, then sourcing labor for these projects would become an issue.

It was indeed a vexing problem and only time would tell if the strategy to attract the unemployed from Europe and America would succeed and how many would come to Australasia for a livelihood.

What Arthur had not expected was that he had underestimated the damage the economic crisis had done to Europe and America, and the impact on the incomes of their peoples.

Within a few days, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Immigration Bureau jointly reported some good news. Between August 6 and August 12, Australasia welcomed a total of 113,000 immigrants, setting a record for the number of immigrants acquired in a single week.

What does obtaining 113,000 immigrants in one week mean? It averages to 16,140 per day, equating to a total of 5.89 million immigrants per year.

Of course, such figures couldn’t last for long, as the majority of immigrants still faced considerable difficulties in coming to Australasia.

Beyond the sensation caused by the infrastructure construction worldwide, these people had been unemployed for a long time, and they and their families were on the brink of starvation. This was the real reason behind their eagerness to come to Australasia.

Once other countries took certain actions, the number of unemployed individuals should start to decrease.

By then, the number of immigrants would likely fall, at least not as exaggerated as it was at present.

Furthermore, most of the unemployed had trouble even feeding themselves, let alone sparing some funds to purchase tickets for ocean voyages.

If the problem of travel expenses for these unemployed people is not resolved, the number of immigrants to Australia will not be too substantial.

After all, for these immigrants, spending a large sum of money on an ocean voyage ticket rather than buying enough grain to wait for government relief is not a viable option.