Fed: Sydney jobless rate wiped out, but northern NSW lags

AAP General News (Australia)
08-18-2000
Fed: Sydney jobless rate wiped out, but northern NSW lags

The Olympic jobs boom has helped to all but wipe out unemployment in Sydney, but has
bypassed the rest of New South Wales, with the state's far north coast recording the nation's
worst jobless rate.

Sydney's wealthy eastern suburbs now have the nation's lowest jobless rate with just
2,800 or 2.0 per cent of the population there looking for work in July.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says the city's northern beaches, north shore and
inner and southern suburbs also have jobless rates well below three per cent.

The whole of Sydney has a jobless rate of just four per cent, with Queensland's Darling
Downs and southern Melbourne the only areas outside the Olympic city with unemployment
below four per cent.

But Prime Minister JOHN HOWARD has acknowledged there are still areas with unacceptably
high levels of unemployment.

The Richmond-Tweed region on the far north coast of New South Wales has an unemployment
rate of 10.3 per cent.

Next is the Gold Coast on 10.0 per cent followed closely by the adjoining Moreton region.

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KEYWORD: JOBS (CANBERRA)

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