FACTBase Bulletin 47 - The Attraction of Perth and Peel Centres for Global Firms and Local Commuters

This FACTBase unpacks the industry and employment attractiveness of these centres by examining the geographical distribution of economic activities at the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) spatial scale.

Key Findings

• Sub regional activity centres as secondary employment hubs were created as a strategic attempt to decentralise employment and; land use in order to provide more employment opportunities outside of the Perth centre and to ease the pressure on main infrastructure sources.
• When looking at headquarters and branch offices, the corridor between Fremantle to Perth City and then to the Airport holds 87% indicating that there is a relatively central concentration within the Greater Perth region for these corporate headquarters.
• There are evidently clusters of knowledge employment with Greater Perth. For example, professional, scientific and technical services employment is clustered primarily in Perth City and then secondarily in Subiaco-Shenton Park; health care and social assistance is mainly clustered within central SA2s of Fremantle, Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley, Subiaco-Shenton Park and Joondalup in the north; and arts and recreation services are clustered in Victoria Park-Lathlain-Burswood (Crown Perth).
• These clusters can be explained through locations of historic infrastructure investment or locations of natural competitive advantage, such as health care and social assistance being located in close proximity to research and development facilities (such as UWA/QEII).
• Future state and local strategic plans need to leverage existing industry competitiveness or complementariness for greater employment opportunities.