Drop in jobless as city on rise

TOWNSVILLE’S unemployment rate has been cut to 7.6 per cent as the benefits of flood recovery work and jobs in major projects start to flow, economist Colin Dwyer says.

Mr Dwyer was commenting on the release of the March quarter Small Area Labour Markets report by the Federal Government’s Department of Employment.

The report shows the jobless rate in the Townsville local government area has fallen 0.6 percentage points to 7.6 per cent compared with the December quarter.

The March quarter rate in 2017 was 10.8 per cent.

Mr Dwyer said it was a welcome improvement for Northern Australia’s largest city, which has suffered multiple hits to its economy from contraction in spending, particularly affecting retail, and the closure of enterprises such as the Yabulu nickel refinery in 2016.

He said there had been a similar drop in unemployment in the March quarter in Townsville last year but that the latest figures appeared to show further improvement.

“The major difference that has occurred is (work created by) the floods. There’s also work that has started on significant projects around the Townsville region,” Mr Dwyer said.

He said about 750 more jobs had been added to the city’s labour market.

“There’s probably more work for construction workers and there might be a little less work in retail but on the whole 750 more jobs have been identified in these figures,” Mr Dwyer said.

“It’s a positive step but I can’t say there’s a start of recovery until I see more data flowing through.”

Mr Dwyer said the report provided more detailed figures on employment by suburb.

It shows big differences with Annandale and Bohle Plains with jobless rates of 2.4 and 2.2 per cent respectively, while Aitkenvale at 13.6 per cent and Heatley at 15 per cent still had very high rates. Kirwan East was at 12.2 per cent while Kirwan west was at 4.9 per cent.

The Magnetic Island rate is 8.4 per cent, while Palm Island is listed at 45.6 per cent.

Managing director of Colliers International Townsville Peter Wheeler said projects including the North Queensland Stadium, the Haughton water pipeline, the $370 million Sun Metals zinc refinery expansion and the $515 million Bruce Highway upgrade on the Haughton River floodplain were all providing significant work.