Australian CEO wants higher unemployment and ‘pain in the economy’

An Australian CEO who previously blamed millennials’ financial woes on their consumption of avocado toast now has another interesting opinion: He wants a drastic increase in unemployment in his home country because workers are too arrogant.

Tuesday, Tim Gurner, founder and head of the Gurner Group, suggested employees need to be reminded “that they work for the employer, not the other way around”, according to the Australian Financial Review.

“People have decided they don’t really want to work as much anymore because of COVID and that’s had a huge productivity problem,” he told the Australian Financial Review Property Summit in Sydney.

“There has been a systematic shift where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them,” he said. “They have been paid well not to do too much in recent years, and we need to see that change. »

His solution? A significant increase in unemployment.

“Unemployment needs to rise by 40, 50%,” declared the millionaire real estate developer. “We need to see the pain in the economy. »

The Daily Mail noted that Australia’s current unemployment rate is 3.7% and that a 50% increase would put an additional 275,000 Australians out of work.

But the good part, says Gurner, is that would lead to “less arrogance in the labor market”.

You can hear his comments, in all their Monopoly Man glory, below.

Gurner was widely mocked online for his avocado toast remarks in 2017. Now, with his latest claim of obnoxious greed, he’s gotten burned once again.