Adelaide Risks Exodus

[Guest The Pom Queen]

South Australia risks an exodus of young people not seen since the State Bank collapsed in the early 1990s unless more jobs are created, new research has suggested.

 

Key points:

 

SA workforce growth is half the national rate

State population growth also is half that nationally

Non-working people 65 and older a fast-rising group

The state's workforce is growing at half the national rate and South Australia's ageing population is rising quickly, the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies at Adelaide University said.

 

Its executive director Michael O'Neil said more youth training opportunities were needed and a boost in skilled migration might help improve the state's outlook.

 

"We're trying to transform the economy from old manufacturing to advanced manufacturing and renewables. These are the industries of young people and young ideas and we're losing that population," he said.

 

"We need to make it much, much cheaper for young people to be attending TAFE [and] we really need to boost migration."

 

South Australia faced a significant economic downturn after its State Bank collapsed in 1991.

 

"This was a time in which a number of headquartered companies and major offices of other companies were shut down, and a wave of manufacturing enterprises also closed their doors," Professor O'Neil said.

 

"The age structure of the state's population and workforce is currently a very strong impediment to economic growth.

 

"Most notably, young people and young families left the state from 1993 to 2002, adding to other states' younger populations and depleting our own."

 

SA population growth half the national rate

 

In about three decades to 2014, South Australia's population grew by 350,000, almost 27 per cent, at a time when the national population grew by 55 per cent.

 

The research found the number of younger people who were potentially economically active and contributing to the state was now less than the rate of the early 1980s.

 

It said South Australia had just 58 per cent of its population employed, lower than the average across the nation.

 

The number of South Australians aged 65 or older who were not working had increased dramatically and reached 26 per cent in the 2013-14 financial year, it found.

 

"These figures represent a real challenge for our state, as they suggest our economy is not creating enough employment opportunities, which impacts on the level and growth rate of gross state product," Professor O'Neil said.

 

"Skilled migration is one important option for our state. While immigrants benefit from their employment in Australia, the Australian population as a whole benefits from their contribution to the economy."

 

Professor O'Neil said well-educated younger families could add to economic growth as they bolstered retail demand and needed housing and schools, among other things.

 

'Young people will always leave to pursue new opportunities'

 

A Government official said the rate of exodus had been slowing and it was working to create opportunities through its agency Investment Attraction and small business backer Hub Adelaide.

 

"Young people will always leave smaller jurisdictions to pursue new opportunities in larger cities, however this trend is slowing in South Australia," he said.

 

"The important thing is not that young people leave, but that they come back to our state to live and raise a family.

 

"Ultimately young people want good job opportunities and we are intensively focusing on creating these in new and emerging industries."

 

The Government said Adelaide ranked as one of the world's most liveable cities and that lifestyle was something it was keen to protect and enhance.

 

"There is little doubt that our vibrant city agenda has made our city a more attractive place for young people, shedding a long-held reputation of Adelaide as a boring city, when we are anything but," the spokesperson said.

 

It claimed Adelaide was the cheapest city in Australia in which to run a business.

[starlight7]

Adelaide has always had probs with employment ever since we have been here many years before and I don't really see what is any different now. Many young ones have, over the years, described it as boring though I like the place, personally. I could imagine after a number of years it might pall but to me it seems to be the gateway to the outback and that sort of lifestyle which has almost passed. Hope it continues to attract a few youngsters and at least people involved with tourism.

[Diane]

I really don't see how bringing in more migrants is going to help at all! High unemployment, growing by the day, and they want to bring in more people, rather than looking at how to increase the jobs? I get that one of the migrants will be a skilled worker, with skills that perhaps are not available here, but their wife and teenage kids are all just extra competition for a shrinking number of jobs. Add that to the fact that the skills list is never up to date, and even if there are skills shortages, they are probably in the country areas where few migrants are interested in settling.... I bet manufacturing engineers are still on the skills shortage list, and the market is already pretty saturated!

 

My OH's contract ends here in about a year, and tbh whether we'll be staying after that is quite a question

[deryans]

Pretty shocking and sad the comments on here by local adeladians:

http://indaily.com.au/business/2016/04/12/sas-age-structure-holding-us-back-economic-paper

 

 

 

 

• Neil Paterson • 13 hours agoSkilled Migration Huh? Where are they going to work? Just relying on them arriving here with all of their o/seas assets cashed out to make the move, and therefore inject some local purchasing power does not solve the real problem - there are just no jobs! BTW: I was a skilled migrant 13 yrs ago that now generates all of my income interstate and internationally - it's sad to say, but SA seems to be in a death spiral of it's own (Gov) making I think.
• Ms Nanny State • 13 hours agoThe 'exodus' out of Adelaide started in the late 1970s. Also the interstate emigration figures out of SA are under done by at least 60 per cent. The reason is that the ABS relies on people informing Medicare of their new address in Melbourne or Sydney or where ever. Not a high priority if you're 22 and starting a new life.
  
• Pete • 14 hours agoIt's all about jobs. Sheeze it ain't hard. I'm tired of the constant banging on about increasing population from economists and vested interests. Yes there may be a demographic, age related shift. I say that is great. We need less people in the long term, not more. Ok there will be significant pain however the current world plague of humanity simply cannot keep growing and consuming at the rate it is until we learn how to manage ourselves sustainably. We may as well be the leaders and exploit it.
  
• Nigal • 14 hours agoWe need to employ the people we already have, not import more problems.
  It is disgusting the amount of over 40-50s that have virtually no jobs to go to, and it is not their fault.
  Fix this problem and people will return and bring others. Only when their prospects are looking better will things turn around.
  Increasing the population is never the answer, look around the world more population increases the cost for everyone and never solves the problems.
  

 

 

 

 

• ben • 16 hours agoI'm 45 and wish i had left when i was 20
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  • Jason ben• 16 hours agosame - best to leave at 20-25 if you are going to leave
    also lost 6 figures "downsizing" my house to reduce debt
    tough crowd Adelaide
    

   

   

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  Maggie • 16 hours agoWake up SA - there are no jobs for young graduates or school leavers why does this make news as everyone knows they have to move interstate or overseas to get a decent job after all the hard work at university or school and some of our universities are out of touch with the workforce! Take their money then let them go into the 'big bad world' unprepared..

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  • Lillian Rojas Maggie• 16 hours agoWell said Maggie. What exactly what my Adelaidian friends say in Sydney.
    

   

   

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  Shaugn • 16 hours agoThis is all fine and well, but the reality is that notwithstanding excellent qualifications, migrants find it exceedingly difficult to be placed in good jobs in South Australia. Working through agencies appears to be a nigh on impenetrable wall and I suspect it's because when weighing up a candidate - proviso's of "local experience, closely defined job definitions that exclude candidates with transferable skills, a tick box approach that effectively rules out migrant candidates, are all contributory factors. This promotes an environment where jobs get shuffled around a core of local workers, with the odd migrant getting a chance. Coupled with that, it's not as though there are a huge amount of jobs available. So all in all, speaking from experience (I have a masters and two bachelors degrees), it's a long, frustrating and heart breaking process.

  Don't kid yourself that it's a fair employment environment. It's not. Your either too old, too young, too qualified, too not australian, too whatever. There is an underbelly of having to belong to the club that no one wants to see or admit to. Small wonder people look for better alternatives!

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  • Neil Paterson Shaugn• 13 hours agoExactly right - Adelaide seems to be quite unique in an 'Old Boys' club kind of way. Looks like it's unraveling fast now though.
  • Vernham Shaugn• 14 hours agoAs well as not 'connected' that is do not know the right people to put in a word for you - whether your capable of doing the job or not and usually not. That's why there are so many idiots working and well rounded, qualified and capable people out of work while others are in jobs they are not capable of doing or even want to do.
    

   

   

 

[srg73]

Sky are reporting Queensland will be shrinking this year for the first time in circa 80 years. What they are reporting is more people leaving the state for either other states or off shore. I'm guessing regional areas are pushing the figures down as Brisbane and Gold Coast have loads of activity at the moment.

 

S

[northshorepom]

The debate (not just in SA) needs to be about what the future economic trajectory needs to be, and what needs to be done to support that

 

The demographic issue is a problem for all states (and nations) - losing young people and having an increasing proportion of your population non-productive isn't sustainable, you are heading for sharply increasing budget deficits, sharply reducing govt spending, sharply increasing taxation or a combination of all three, and the economic ramifications of that are likely to exarcerbate the problem. Governments are highly sensitive to it because once you get in the grip of that sort of cycle it's very hard to break out of and there are real risks of economic shock - the type that affect everyone because they destroy the value of savings and investments that those non-productive people are relying on.

 

Hence the talk about migration. Problem with that is partly political, in that the public generally see jobs as a zero sum game so if someone is coming in to work, someone else loses their job (this isn't how it works), but also it just puts a sticking plaster over the issue and "kicks the can down the road" of having to deal with it later. So it doesn't work either.

 

Manufacturing in this country is always going to be hard yards because of the proximity of so much productive capacity in SE Asia and the smallness of domestic markets. In developed countries where manufacturing is still doing well, it's had to become massively more productive and automated, so this has kept the GVA up but the mass employment isn't there, and it's never going to be there again.

 

If you want to attract young people and try to get economic activity moving in something that is genuinely wealth creating, then you need to be looking at technology and innovation in some way - be it tech services, biotech, alternative energy, whatever. What's SA's technological infrastructure and higher education establishments like?