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Working from the Dept of Employment quarterly (unsmoothed original) Small Area Labour Market data we have recently added to our QLD Local Government Area Trend series by expanding to cover all the LGAs in NSW.
For the quarter to Dec 2017 the highest level of Trend unemployment in NSW was in the small Riverina council of Edward River at 10.6% while the lowest was, not surprisingly, in Woollahra in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs (centred around Rose Bay, Double Bay and Vaucluse) at just 1.1%.
Of the larger councils (with a labour force in excess of 50,000) the City of Fairfield Council had the highest Trend unemployment rate at 8.6% while the Northern Beaches Council had the lowest at just 2.3%.
While the SALM data does not explicitly provide employment data it can be derived from the Labour Force and Unemployment data that is provided (although we acknowledge that the different methodologies used for the estimation of unemployment and Labour Force data make such a derivation problematic we consider that the estimated Trend based on this derivation provides a useful, albeit limited, indicator for employment trends). Creating a Trend SALM employment measure gives us some idea as to where employment growth has been strong or weak.
Doing so reveals that the fastest pace of Trend employment growth was Queanbeyan-Palerang Council at 8.2% y/y while it was falling at 7.0% y/y in Cootamundra-Gundagai Council.
When we consider the larger councils the fastest growth was seen in Campbelltown at 7.7% y/y (with a Trend unemployment rate of 6.3% which has fallen from 7.1% a year ago) while the worst was Northern Beaches at -3.6% y/y (where the Trend unemployment rate has nevertheless fallen from 2.6% a year ago to 2.3% now). The apparent paradox for the Northern Beaches Council is caused by a sharp decline in Labour Force numbers over the year, suggesting a large decline in participation in the area.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series