QUEENSLAND is leading a spike in unemployment around the nation as the impact of the global financial crisis and end of the mining boom bite hard into the real economy.

Centrelink agencies are being swamped with applications for unemployment benefits as the downturn slashes jobs in tourism and mining.

Meanwhile, figures released yesterday in Western Australia detail an economy showing the last gasp of a mining boom that has helped to underwrite two decades of national prosperity.

In just four weeks, the number of short-term unemployed in Queensland leapt by 18.7 per cent, compared with a 13.5 per cent increase across the rest of the nation.

The swift rise in people looking for work has the potential to be politically explosive for Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who is fighting an early election campaign amid Opposition accusations she is running to the polls ahead of the full effect of the global financial crisis.

The jobless surge could cost Labor up to six marginal seats and dash its hopes of winning two Liberal National Party marginals.

While there is always a jump in the number of unemployment benefit claimants at the beginning of a year, new figures from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations show the number of jobless in Queensland is 45.4 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year.

The number of jobless has soared by 40.5 per cent in WA, which is suffering from the collapse of the mining boom. There have been smaller increases in the southeastern states, with rises of 25.7 per cent in NSW, 25 per cent in Victoria, 15.7per cent in South Australia and 22.4 per cent in Tasmania.

"There are two things killing Queensland - the end of the commodity boom and the tourism industry," University of Newcastle labour market specialist Bill Mitchell said yesterday.

"A lot of the coastal towns depend on mining either directly or indirectly, while all along the reef there have been really dramatic declines in tourist revenue, which feeds through to the supply of goods, services and hospitality. The overall decline is hitting other service sectors, with its property market finally coming unstuck."

The DEEWR figures of jobseekeers receiving the Newstart and youth allowances are more accurate than the official jobless numbers compiled by the bureau of statistics, which are based on a limited survey.

The DEEWR numbers show that 18 Centrelink offices in Queensland have experienced a jump in the number of short- and long-term jobless of 15 per cent or more in the past month, compared with just two in NSW and two in Victoria.

In Queensland, five marginal Labor seats hold centres that have reported rises of more than 16.7 per cent in people looking for work in the past four weeks, making the March 21 poll a litmus test on whether the newly jobless are holding Labor or global conditions responsible for their plight.

The northern Brisbane business centre of Chermside, which reported a 20.6 per cent rise, services the Labor-held seat of Aspley with a margin of 3 per cent, while further north on the capital's outskirts, Caboolture (a 15.8 per cent rise) services the marginal Labor seats of Pumicestone (5.5 per cent) and Glass House (0.3 per cent).

In Brisbane's inner west, the business centre of Toowong has had a 15.8 per cent rise in jobless numbers. Though situated in the safe Labor seat of Mt Coot-tha (10.5 per cent), it services the marginal seat of Indooroopilly, won by Labor with a 2.5 per cent margin at the last election but held by Greens MP Ronan Lee, who defected from Ms Bligh's Government during the term.

In North Queensland, Labor's most marginal seat of Whitsunday (held by just 0.1 per cent) has seen a 19.4 per cent rise in jobless numbers. Further north, Ayr (a 21.1 per cent rise) and Bowen (a 21.7 per cent rise) service the marginal Labor-held seat (0.9 per cent) of Burdekin.

The jobless surge has also struck in two conservative seats, Hinchinbook in North Queensland held by the Liberal National Party by 0.1 per cent and the inner-northern Brisbane seat of Clayfield, which is notionally Labor (0.2 per cent) after a redistribution but is held by an LNP member.

Unemployment is also a worry for Labor deeper in the electoral pendulum. The centre of Stones Corner has seen jobless rates rise 19.6 per cent, which could worry Labor if a swing towards the LNP develops in the election campaign. It services the safe Labor seats of Greenslopes (11.4 per cent) and Mansfield (8.3 per cent), both of which have traditionally been held by conservatives when the Coalition has been in power.

The figures will also worry the Rudd Government, which made significant gains in Queensland in the 2007 federal election. The jobless surge has been felt in Wayne Swan's inner northern Brisbane seat of Lilley; Kevin Rudd's inner southern Brisbane seat of Griffith; and the seat of Longman won from the Coalition's Mal Brough in 2007.

Further north, the figures show a jobless surge in Dawson, won by Labor from the Nationals' De-Anne Kelly in 2007.

The figures show the downturn is striking suburbs traditionally vulnerable to unemployment - those with high levels of manufacturing, low levels of income and high migrant populations - as well as the more well-to-do.

There has been a 21.2 per cent rise in the number of job-seekers at Centrelink Chatswood, which services Sydney's leafy north shore suburbs of Castle Cove and Roseville. While it is probably not investment bankers on enforced leave, it may well be their graduate children for whom there are no openings in the industry.

In Victoria, the toughest Centrelink office has been Corio, which manages the industrial belt around Geelong.

Professor Mitchell said the recession would strike middle-class suburbs harder than previous downturns because of the number of highly indebted households dependent on two income-earners. While the number of people who have been unemployed for a year or less is soaring, the number of long-term unemployed is still showing the benefit of the gains in the first half of last year, and is 7.7 per cent lower now than it was in January last year.

The deteriorating jobs outlook is hitting men the hardest, particularly those with 20 years or more workforce experience. The number of men who have been on unemployment benefits for up to a year has risen by 31.9 per cent in the past year, compared with a 23.7 per cent increase in the number of women jobseekers.

Men aged 40-59 years represent the biggest increase in the number on unemployment benefit, up by 37.7per cent. Among women, the most vulnerable years are 25-29, where there has been a 29.6 per cent lift in those on unemployment benefits.

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