Labour Market – Feb Quarter 2015

Job losses in Northern NSW to impact State Poll

According to the latest ABS labour market statistics more than 55,000 jobs have been lost in five NSW regions during the past 12 months.

Comparing the Feb quarter 2014 with the Feb quarter 2015, these five regions – Richmond Tweed, Central West, Hunter Valley, Central Coast and Baulkham Hills/Hawkesbury – are the worst performing Labour markets in both NSW and Australia.

The five regions contain some 19 State seats whose MPs will be determined in the NSW elections on March 28.

Up to eight of these seats could change hands on March 28 and the worst performing region of Richmond Tweed contains marginal seats of Ballina, Tweed and Lismore, which are also impacted by the coal seam gas issue and strong local Green campaigns.

The labour market in Richmond Tweed looks somewhat similar to the Wide Bay region in Queensland, which provided two surprise provincial city gains for the ALP in the recent January 31 Queensland poll.

The excel file below provides basic labour market quarterly summaries for all Australian labour market regions – along with our region codes – and it can thus be easily resorted to for research purposes.

Click Here for BASIC LABOUR MARKET QUARTERLY SUMMARY