FACTBase Bulletin 73 - Making Strategic Jobs Count: Addressing Issues of Spatial Inequality

The Committee for Perth is proud to be leading the way on research into the Future of Work for WA and Greater Perth.

Our latest FACTBase Bulletin - Making Strategic Jobs Count: Addressing Issues of Spatial Inequality explores the employment planning target that has been used to shape job and housing distribution throughout Greater Perth over the past 60 years – the self-sufficiency ratio of Greater Perth’s (Metropolitan and Peel region) planning schemes.

This bulletin is the fourth piece of research to be delivered under the Committee’s 2020-2021 major project the Future of Work: equipping WA and its people for the changing world of work.

Key FIndings:

• Planning to meet long-term State Government targets for job distribution within Greater Perth should differentiate between ‘strategic’ and ‘population-following’ job types.
• Of the 831,000 jobs in Greater Perth in 2016, 31% are classified as strategic and 69% as population-following.
• Population-following jobs are more likely to be evenly spread across a region due to their relationship with population growth, whereas strategic jobs are linked to key industries and may require focused planning support for development.
• Concentrating on strategic jobs ensures policy is adaptive enough to address both employment self-sufficiency and the reality of geographical concentrations of strategic industries.
• Targeting strategic job distribution across a city, as well as travel accessibility to job opportunities, means a focus on fewer, key jobs with a greater chance of success.
• Strategic jobs have complex location requirements but disruptive changes to how we work and travel are likely to alter the geography of jobs and travel in cities, making it more vital than ever to think strategically how we plan for work across a metropolitan area.