Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion.
Briefing Paper No 10/2015 by Daniel Montoya
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Western Sydney is Australia’s third largest economy, housing 47% of
Sydney’s total population (2.12 million) and producing 31% of
Sydney’s Gross Regional Product ($104 billion). 29 NSW electorates,
almost a third of the State’s total, lie at least partly within Western
Sydney.
This paper covers a number of economic indicators for Western Sydney as a
whole, including: Gross Regional Product, the labour force who are residents
of Western Sydney, the labour force whose place of work is Western
Sydney, employment projections by place of work, business numbers,
employment lands, building approvals and completions, and the housing market.
Comparisons are also made to the Rest of Sydney economy and, on occasion, the
NSW economy.
Over the past decade the Western Sydney population has grown faster than the
Rest of Sydney population. Conversely, the economy of Western Sydney has
recorded slower growth than that of the Rest of Sydney on at least three
indicators: Gross Regional Product (GRP); the number of employed residents; and
the number of jobs located in the region. The Western Sydney resident labour
force generally records worse labour force indicators than the Rest of
Sydney: it has higher total and youth unemployment rates and lower total and
youth participation rates.
The Western Sydney economy is expected to start catching up to the Rest of
Sydney economy in the coming decades, driven by projected higher population
growth and a number of infrastructure and policy developments, notably the
Western Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek, the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal and
further development and expansion of the Western Sydney Employment Area.