Lead Story
Issue No. 16 - April/May 2004
Job Creation Capital
by Professor Richard Blandy
This is somewhat surprising, because the two regions are rather different, the north having a concentration of larger manufacturing businesses, military and ICT activities, and the south having a greater diversity of smaller manufacturing businesses, wine and tourism. One reason for this difference is that the north was established in the 1950s whereas the south was established twenty years later in the 1970s.
The employment data for the two areas are presented in Table 1.
Over the past decade, employment in the south of Adelaide increased from 134,000 to 165,000, i.e. by 31,000 people representing an average annual rate of increase of 2.2% per annum (compared with only 1.3% for the State as a whole). Nearly 40% of all the extra jobs created in South Australia over the past decade were created in the south of Adelaide, therefore!
Some 150,000 people live in the City of Onkaparinga. About 100,000 are aged 15–65 (defined as the working age group by the Australian Bureau of Statistics). About 60,000 of this group are employed. Since there are 165,000 people actually employed in the southern region, it follows that at least 105,000 people must be commuting into the southern region for work each week (most of them on a daily basis). I say “at least”, because many of the 60,000 people who live in the southern region, and who are employed, will have jobs outside the southern region. No wonder the southern expressway is needed! And how shortsighted that it was built to let traffic flow only in one direction at a time!
This dynamic picture of progress and success is not one that the media frequently projects about the south. The media stereotype is more of a place of low incomes, social problems and youth gangs. While the southern area has its share of difficulties, it has also shown far greater economic vitality and achievement than it is often given credit for. In fact, simply taking criminal offences per 100,000 population recorded by po...
