Tide Is Turning As Market Draws On Old Strengths

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday June 9, 2006

Matt Wade Economics Writer

NSW will rely on Sydney's traditional strengths such as banking and finance, marketing and communications to drive jobs growth this year, a new employment forecast shows.

The NSW jobs market staged a strong comeback last month, with 47,000 new jobs slashing the state's jobless rate by half a percentage point to 5.1 per cent, the Bureau of Statistics said. The number of people unemployed in the state fell by by more than 15,000 to 178,700.

A separate report, The Sydney Morning Herald Employment Forecast, said jobs growth would be "patchy" until the end of August but there are signs the "tide is turning" for the NSW employment market after a sluggish phase.

"Global growth is bounding ahead, helping to drive strong growth in finance insurance, communications and property and business services," it says.

However, lingering weakness in construction, manufacturing and tourism will hamper overall jobs growth.

As a result, NSW jobs growth will continue to lag the resource-boom states of Western Australia and Queensland, the report says.

The NSW Treasurer, Michael Costa, said yesterday's Bureau of Statistics figures showed the state's jobless rate was "consistent with the national average".

"We are also enjoying higher-than-average full-time employment, high per capita income, and strong business investment," Mr Costa said.

The number of women in work jumped by more than 40,000 last month. About 6000 of their jobs were full-time. This pushed the jobless rate among women down to 4.8 per cent, well below the male rate of 5.4 per cent.

The rate of female labour market participation in NSW rose 0.9 of a percentage point to 55.7 per cent but is still below the national average of 57.4 per cent. There were nearly 3.3 million people in work in NSW last month, about 2.4 million of them full-time.

Following the strong jobs report, Mr Costa criticised the Opposition for "spreading bad news" about the NSW economy.

But the Opposition finance spokeswoman, Peta Seaton, said the Government could "take no comfort" from the jobless figures, which showed the NSW unemployment rate was above the national rate of 4.9 per cent and worse than every mainland state except South Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald Employment Forecast, prepared in conjunction with Economic and Market Development Advisors, said jobs growth in the state's big communications industry was 12.1 per cent in the year to February thanks to the development of "next-generation" telecommunicaitons networks and the rapid growth in broadband. Marketing jobs grew 9.4 per cent in the period and banking was up 8.2 per cent.

Other industries with strong jobs growth were property and business services (up 5.1 per cent) and education (up 4.9 per cent). One of the state's main employers, retail, is starting to recover after a slow period, with growth of 2.9 per cent in the year to February.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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