Today’s most popular Sydney Morning Herald news story focuses on Australia’s jobless hotspots. The article explains how research from the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE) on job loss risk has led to the developement of an Employment Vulnerability Index. This EVI has then been applied to all of Australia’s cities, generating the following heatmaps which can be used to identify suburbs that are at the highest risk of job loss.

Sydney (click for full size)

Melbourne

Brisbane

Adelaide

Perth

Hobart

Canberra

Darwin

source for images: CofFEE/URP Employment Vulnerability Index

The red alert suburbs contain many of the typical Aussie Battler suburbs that have been stereotyped for years - outer suburbs, often associated with old economy manufacturing and high levels of unemployment.

The authors of the report conclude that these Battlers that are already socio-economically disadvantaged will be impacted more in downturn and even in the recovery phase;

“For the unemployed, concentration effects are likely to occur in terms of a lack of employed role models or a lack of information about jobs through social networks.

So there is a double whammy; people in poorly performing spatially-based labour markets are likely to be disadvantaged because of inefficiencies in the operation of the market, but are also disadvantaged because they may lack information about job possibilities.”

The methodology and full PDF report can be downloaded at the CofFEE website here.