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The Centre for Western Sydney's three reports ask Where are the Jobs?, and are available for download. The reports add to the Centre’s portfolio of investigations into Western Sydney’s jobs deficits.
The three new reports were prepared by Professor Phillip O'Neill, in partnership with .id The Population Experts https://home.id.com.au/ and National Economics https://nieir.com.au/
- Where are the Jobs? Part 1 Western Sydney’s short-lived jobs boom
- Where are the Jobs? Part 2 The geography of Western Sydney’s jobs deficit
- Where are the Jobs? Part 3 Western Sydney workers in 2036
Comment on the three reports and the articles is welcome. Please email Professor O’Neill at p.oneill@westernsydney.edu.au.
The Centre for Western Sydney's report into Youth Unemployment in Western Sydney has been released.
The report was prepared by Professor Phillip O'Neill, the Director of the Centre for Western Sydney, in partnership with .id The Population Experts and commissioned by Youth Action.
The Centre for Western Sydney's report into the connections between transport, jobs and population growth has been released for comment.
The report was prepared by the Centre for Western Sydney's Director, Professor Phil O'Neill, in collaboration with .id The Population Experts.
The Centre for Western Sydney's first platform paper, Work, Places and People in Western Sydney, is available for download.
The paper has been prepared by Emeritus Professor Robert Fagan, and the Centre for Western Sydney's Director, Professor Phil O'Neill.
Key Findings
There is an increasing disconnect between the resident labour force and the jobs available within the region. This means that more workers in industry sectors key for growth will leave Western Sydney for work elsewhere in the metropolitan area.
This runs counter to NSW government planning objectives and strategies maintained since 1988.
Growth in the numbers of resident workers in financial and professional services across GWS is still falling behind the rest of the city. Between 2001 and 2011 only the resident labour forces of Parramatta and The Hills had proportions of information service workers near the metropolitan average. For the businesses services sector for 2011:
- There are nearly twice as many resident workers in GWS working in the information services sector employment as there are jobs in this sector in the region, and therefore a growing source of out-commuting.
- Higher-salary managerial and professional occupations were below the average metropolitan level in all LGAs except The Hills.
Except in the outer Western Sydney LGAs, employment self-sufficiency – finding work where you live – has fallen. This is the result of processes of suburbanisation of manufacturing and service jobs and periodic job-shedding, especially from the manufacturing sector.
Jobs in finance, business and professional services have sustained high growth-rates in the metropolitan economy contributing strongly to the idea of Sydney as a global city. Yet in most parts of GWS growth in these high-order services jobs has lagged well behind other parts of Sydney and has played little part in offsetting net job-losses from manufacturing.
Western Sydney is not keyed to the global growth sectors priming the central and northern areas of Greater Metropolitan Sydney. This means that Western Sydney lacks important economic drivers and the infrastructures and political institutions that would otherwise characterise a region of its size.
Western Sydney has followed Metropolitan Sydney with growth of regional jobs in health care and education outstripping retailing, transport and construction in most LGAs. But there are intra-regional trends that bear attention. By 2011 the proportion of jobs in fast-growth professional (business) services was below the metropolitan level in all LGAs except The Hills.
Significantly, the lowest jobs growth rates for professional (business) services were in the industrialised inner LGAs. In the financial services sector, jobs growth remained below the metropolitan level in all LGAs except Parramatta and Auburn. Reflecting the disappointing jobs growth rates in high value adding services sectors, by 2011 faster-growing, higher-wage, graduate-entry jobs remain weakly developed across GWS as a whole.
Relatively low rates of tertiary qualifications in the Western Sydney labour force throttles investment in key growth sectors and stymies the development of knowledge clusters.
The 2011 patterns of tertiary qualifications among 25 to 34 year-olds across GWS mirror the low proportions of resident labour forces working in information, finance, property and professional-business service sectors (IFPB) – where tertiary qualifications are usually required – except in The Hills and Parramatta. The relatively low proportion of 25 to 34 year-olds across GWS with tertiary qualifications has been a brake on regional private sector investment and job-growth in information services.
