The pandemic has brought a lot of changes to the world as we knew it, but surprisingly it has seen employment rates soar and Western NSW remains at the epicentre of the jobs-led road to recovery.

While in April 2020, employment for those aged 15 and over fell by almost 600,000 people – the most significant drop since 1978 – the national labour market later redeemed itself, faring better than prior to COVID-19. 

By July 2021, Australia’s employment rate for people aged 15-64 was at a record high 76%, with Western NSW at the forefront, being deemed the state’s regional job hotspot.

Director of Orana Regional Development Australia Megan Dixon says that regional areas bucked the trend - while Covid-19 meant being stood down and grounded for city workers, in regional areas the shift looked much different. 

“For our region, we had a bounce back into a couple of industries, and the expansion of others. The farm economy came out of drought, and we had domestic tourism at a significant high. Mining also saw an expansion because of increased commodity prices,” Ms Dixon said.

Megan Dixon, CEO of Regional Development Australia - Orana, is keeping a keen eye on the employment trends across the region.

Still, a state-wide lockdown was bound to ruin the soaring statistics, and this month (September 2021) the employment rate had decreased to 62.2%, a drop of over 10%.

Locally, that has seen sectors such as tourism and retail taking a dive due to restrictions. 

In the Orana Far West employment region, unemployment has increased to 5.7%, well up from the historic lows of 1.8% in April 2020.

Despite the drop in employment nationwide, Western NSW remained relatively resilient as covid-19 brought the expansion of even more industries, such as increased demand in health roles, and the diversification of retailers such as supermarkets. 

Ms Dixon says that when drought persisted across the state for years in a row, rather than leave the region, a lot of farm workers transitioned into mining. 

“Now that we have both of those industries pumping at the same time, the demand for labour increases because there’s competition for labour between the two industries,” Ms Dixon said.

Where concern lingers for local communities is not job availability nor employment levels, but that the population continues a slow downward decline, exacerbating the escalating workforce shortage being experienced across the west in industries as diverse as transport and child care.

However hope remains for towns across the Western Plains, with the pandemic signalling a wake-up call for many city dwellers that it’s time for a tree change.

“We are hearing of quite a few young people returning home. We think there will be a lot more of that happening, as well,” she said. 

Ms Dixon commented that the census data will offer much better insight into the tumultuous effects of the pandemic.

“It’s actually awesome timing for the census to have occurred,” Ms Dixon said of the national data collection, with its insight marking the middle of a significantly different lifestyle to what it looked like last census date in 2016.