DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF COVID-19 IN AUSTRALIA: EVIDENCE FROM GOOGLE SEARCH DATA

Quantifying the immediate economic impact of COVID-19 is important to design proportionate relief and support policies. However, surveys of businesses and households are only typically available after considerable delay. We use near-real-time Google search data to examine the temporal and spatial impacts of COVID-19 on service sector activity in Australia. We find that the travel-related and consumer-facing sectors, such as aviation, tourism, hotels, restaurants, and retail trade, suffered steep contractions during the outbreak. By contrast, sectors that involve less physical and face-to-face interaction, such as info-communication technology (ICT) and delivery services, experienced significant gains. The magnitude of the impact is large. During the first COVID-19 wave between January and March, the demand for air travel, tourism, and hotel accommodation declined by 60–80%, while the demand for ICT and delivery services surged by more than 50%. In states and territories with low caseloads, the impact has also been severe due to government-enforced nationwide social distancing measures to contain disease spread. However, in states and territories that eased restrictions earlier and faster, there has been no significant reduction in demand for certain consumer-facing services. Our findings demonstrate the usefulness of high-frequency and near-real-time indicators in monitoring the rapidly unfolding effects of COVID-19.