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The Dept of Employment recently released the latest Small Area Labour Market (SALM) data at the Local Government Area level for the quarter to March 2018.
Using the unsmoothed (original) SALM data, which is tucked away in the explanatory notes section, we have created a Conus SALM Trend series of unemployment rates and derived employment for all the QLD LGAs.
This shows us that the Queensland LGA with the highest Trend unemployment rate (excluding Aboriginal councils) was Charters Towers Regional Council at 12.5% (which is almost unchanged from a year earlier) with Isaac Regional Council the lowest at 1.6% (down from 1.9% a year earlier).
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). Once we create a Conus Trend for this derived data series we are able to get some idea of where employment gains are being made within the broader region.
For the wider “Cairns” region (the LGAs of Cairns, Cassowary Coast, Douglas, Tablelands, Mareeba and Yarrabah are only an approximation for the Cairns SA4 region, particularly as a large portion of Mareeba Shire falls outside Cairns SA4) this analysis suggests that jobs growth for the year to Mar 2018 has been made up in the following proportions from the various LGAs within the region, and shows how these percentages deviate from population percentages. This suggests that Cairns Regional Council has been the only area performing relatively somewhat better than might be expected while most other areas have under-performed.
Cairns Regional Council +1,270 – 74% (above 63% population share)
Cassowary Coast Regional Council +137– 8% (below 12% population share)
Tablelands Regional Council +173 – 10% (in line with 10% population share)
Mareeba Shire Council +113 – 7% (below 9% population share)
Douglas Shire Council +95 – 6% (slightly above 5% population share)
Yarrabah Council -73 – na (only 1% population share, but beware of volatile data in such a small sample)
The Conus SALM Trend unemployment rates across the region in Mar were (with Dec in brackets);
Cairns Regional Council – 5.8% (5.5%)
Cassowary Coast Regional Council – 5.9% (5.8%)
Tablelands Regional Council – 7.1% (6.5%)
Mareeba Shire Council – 9.0% (8.8%)
Douglas Shire Council – 4.9% (4.7%)
Yarrabah Council – 51.0% (49.6%)
As we see all council areas saw increases in Trend unemployment rates for the quarter. Despite the very different methodologies used, this conclusion tallies with the results of the most recent Conus/CBC Staff Selection Employment Trend data which showed the labour market has been weakening in the Cairns SA4 region for some months now.
Townsville City Council sees the Trend unemployment rate at 9.1%, which is an increase from 8.7% in Dec.
The full Conus SALM Trend data set is available on request.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series