employment creation

Penrith City Council (NSW)

 

Creating local jobs in growth areas

 

Penrith City is located at the western fringe of the Sydney metropolitan area - about 54 kilometres from the Sydney CBD. 

It is a residential and rural area, with most of the population living in residential areas in a linear corridor along the Great Western Highway and the main western railway. With an estimated resident population of 186,221 in 2010, Penrith is forecast to grow to 210,302 by 2031 (.id forecasts).

Council established the Penrith Business Alliance with a principal objective to address the imbalance between the number of working residents and jobs in the local economy. To provide the evidence base for this work .id built Penrith an online economic profile.

Ben Artup, Industry and Investment Manager:  “We look to address this issue through local industry development strategies that will increase the future quantum of high quality jobs on offer in our economy.”

Ben explains:  “To do this we need reliable and easy to access information on the flows of workers leaving our City each day for work, along with information on which local industries are growing or declining in terms of their contribution to our local jobs stock.

“Looking at the ‘journey to work data’ in economy.id helps us provide a factual basis to develop our investment, transport and planning strategies that will underpin future economic development." 

"In particular, economy.id helps provide data for evidence-based submissions to other levels of government who may be able to assist us in these projects."

Craig Butler, Council Director, is on the executive of the National Growth Areas Alliance (NGAA) – a group of the 24 fastest growing councils in Australia.  “We advocate for equitable access to jobs and services in areas experiencing rapid urban growth” Craig explains. 

 

Which product did they use?

Penrith subscribes to all of .id's information tools. This case study particularly relates to their use of economy.id.