Fed: Regions missing out on IT jobs: Report

AAP General News (Australia)
12-20-2000
Fed: Regions missing out on IT jobs: Report

CANBERRA, Dec 20 AAP - Regional Australia is being left out of the surge in IT and
telecommunications employment, a new research paper has found.

The Monash University study found Sydney and Melbourne were dominating the IT field,
even at the expense of other capital cities.

It also found that despite the promise of better telecommunications infrastructure
for regional areas, federal, state and local governments would have to boost education,
training and business investment to catch the IT wave.

Report authors Bob Birrell and Kevin O'Connor said as regional centres missed out on
IT growth they also failed to attract high-wage IT employees who in turn have an impact
on local retail and property markets.

"The recent Australian experience confirms ... that firms exploiting knowledge-based
production systems, often associated with global demand, favour the metropolitan locations,"

the authors said in the report.

"Regional service providers face the major additional problem of attracting the skilled
workers they require."

In Victoria, the report found large and small regional centres accounted for 5.5 per
cent of the state's workers but just 2.7 per cent of workers in the IT and business services
sector.

In New South Wales there was an equally stark difference in IT employment levels.

The report found that while inland regional centres were well behind Sydney in IT employment,
it was even worse in growing coastal centres.

While almost four per cent of NSW residents live in coastal areas outside of Sydney,
Newcastle and Wollongong, just 1.2 per cent were employed in the IT field.

The report's authors said that without a change in general regional policy, inland
regional areas would continue to miss out on IT jobs and development.

"(It) implies that governments intent on tackling the regional development problem
will have to do much more than ensure that the relevant telecommunications infrastructure
is in place in regional centres if business service firms are to flourish in these places,"

they said.

"Major investments in education and research and development, along with incentives
for the creation and expansion of firms, will be necessary."

AAP sw/daw/jas

KEYWORD: REGIONS

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