Tycoon Says 270K Aussies Need to Lose Their Jobs

One of Australia's richest men has apologized after calling for 270,000 job losses to show workers their place. Gurner Group founder and CEO Tim Gurner, a multimillionaire real-estate tycoon, was speaking at the Australian Financial Review's property summit on Tuesday when he said workers have become "arrogant" since the COVID-19 pandemic began and "we've got to kill that attitude" as it's hurting productivity, per the BBC. "Unemployment has to jump 40%-50% in my view," the 41-year-old with a personal net worth of $788 million continued in a clip viewed more than 24 million times on X. As AFR reports, Gurner was essentially calling for unemployment to climb from 3.7% to 5.6%, meaning 270,500 people would lose their jobs.

"We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around," Gurner said. He noted "there's been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them as opposed to the other way" and "we've got to kill that attitude." With "massive layoffs," we've begun to see "less arrogance in the employment market" but more are still needed, said Gurner, who previously garnered controversy in stating that young people can't afford homes because they're "spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees and not working." Australian lawmakers and even US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned his words.

Labor MP Jerome Laxale said, "These are comments you'd associate with a cartoon supervillain," while Liberal MP Keith Wolahan said they "could not be more out of touch" as "families are working multiple jobs just to stay afloat," per AFR. AOC said it was a "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." On Thursday, the luxury real-estate developer took to LinkedIn to say he regretted his comments, which "were deeply insensitive to employees, [tradespeople], and families across Australia who are affected by these cost-of-living pressures and job losses." "I sincerely regret that my words did not convey empathy for those in that situation," he added. (More workers stories.)