Population and employment change in Australia's functional economic regions

Abstract

This paper considers the issue of population growth and its impacts on employment change at a regional level. Specifically it addresses the question: What are the associations between shifts in population share and shifts in employment share across regional Australia and are we witnessing shifts in employment associated with the widely observed shifts in population to the so-called sun-belt states? It attempts to answer this question by up-dating an earlier analysis using newly formed spatial units - functional economic regions (FERS) - and recent census data. It finds that while there is some broad aggregate associations between population growth and employment growth, once a sectoral analysis is undertaken, the linear association between population and employment changes is less clear-cut.