Explore Indicators
Local job opportunities
What is the indicator?
This indicator asks residents to rate how well the local economy is doing in providing employment opportunities for local residents. It has similarities to the Consumer and business confidence indicator, but focuses more specifically on ratings of performance of a local economy in terms of providing job opportunities for residents.
What can this tell us about wellbeing?
Living in a community that provides meaningful job and income earning opportunities supports wellbeing of residents. However, it is important to examine whether the types of opportunities being provided are ones that support a high quality of life. Not all jobs support high wellbeing, which means it is possible a local economy will be rated highly on the availability of local jobs, but that this will not be contributing positively to overall quality of life. To understand whether job opportunities are likely to be contributing positively to wellbeing, consideration is needed of whether the job opportunities available provide good remuneration and working conditions.
Advantages and disadvantages of this indicator
Advantages: Confidence in the local economy’s ability to provide opportunities for meaningful livelihood is an important aspect of wellbeing: being able to have a good livelihood is important for those who are in the labour force, and their households.
Disadvantages: Sometimes an economy can provide a lot of jobs – but some of those jobs have potential to harm wellbeing. For example, if an economy provides many jobs, but those jobs involve long work hours in high risk environments, then despite the opportunity to earn income, overall wellbeing may be negatively affected by reduced social connection and personal health. If many local jobs provide low incomes that do not enable a person to afford local living costs, then having a lot of local employment available will not necessarily support a good quality of life.
What measures should I use for this indicator?
This indicator is measured by including questions about confidence in availability of good livelihood/job opportunities in a survey. The University of Canberra Regional Wellbeing Survey includes measures of confidence in local employment opportunities each year, and these data are publicly available in two forms: data tables that are updated annually, and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard. These provide data for many, but not all, local government areas (LGAs) across Australia; where sample sizes are too small to show data for a specific LGA, data are made available for the larger region the LGA is a part of.
Measures
The Regional Wellbeing Survey includes questions about local job opportunities. These are published annually in data tables and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard. Data are published for Australia, states and territories, regional Australia, and a range of geographic regions. The smallest scale at which data are available is the local government area (LGA), although sample sizes are too small to report data for some smaller population LGAs in rural Australia. Where this is the case, findings are published for a larger region that includes that LGA.
You can use measures of perceptions of local job/livelihood opportunities from the Regional Wellbeing Survey in a number of ways:
- Directly source data about your community or region from the results published each year in data tables and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard
- Include the same questions in your own survey, and draw on Regional Wellbeing Survey data to provide comparison data that enables you to assess how your community is going compared to others of similar size, or to the average for regional areas in your state/territory, or across regional Australia, urban Australia, or Australia as a whole.
Interpretation of these measures appears initially straightforward – an increase in local job opportunities in the local economy is positive, while a decrease indicates potential for reduced wellbeing. While the former is generally an agreed interpretation, an increase in job opportunities can sometimes be associated with stress on wellbeing if there isn’t enough local labour to meet demand. This is a situation common in some Australian rural communities, and for this reason, it is important to also consider the Local workforce availability indicator, which examines whether there are enough local workers to fill local job vacancies.
The primary data source available for this indicator is the Regional Wellbeing Survey. Data are updated annually, and available in two formats: data tables, and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard. The questions included in the Regional Wellbeing Survey are described below; these can be measured separately or combined into an index measuring overall levels of confidence in local job opportunities. Other questions in the RWS also provide insight into local economic confidence; see the Confidence in the local economy, Youth access to local education and work opportunities, and Living cost affordability indicators. This indicator should ideally be paired with Local workforce availability, which examines the ‘flip side’ experienced by many rural communities in Australia, where there are not enough local workers to fill local job vacancies.
| Question/item | Response options |
| To progress my career much further, I’m likely to have to move to another region as there’s few or no local opportunities | 7 point scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree), with a ‘Don’t know’ option also provided |
| The local region provides good job opportunities for people in my area of work | 7 point scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree), with a ‘Don’t know’ option also provided |
| There are plenty of jobs available around here at the moment | 7 point scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree), with a ‘Don’t know’ option also provided |
| To what extent are the following problems/challenges in your community at the moment?
Lack of job opportunities |
7 point scale from 1 (Not a problem) to 7 (Very big problem), with a ‘Don’t know’ option also provided |
This measure can be included in your own survey. You can replicate questions used in the Regional Wellbeing Survey, or design your own that are focused on the specific issues of interest or concern in your community.