Economic vulnerability in Australia, 2002-12: an employment perspective
Concerned with ways to characterise economic vulnerability in labour market regions (including metropolitan regions) that are susceptible to structural economic change, the authors look at five indicators of economic vulnerability which were developed to rank regions from the most to the least vulnerable. These are: the change in average hours worked; the change in total hours worked; the change in the working-age population; a simple index of industry change; and a measure of labour market turbulence within a region. The authors also looked at a number of government initiatives established to assist industries and individuals in economically vulnerable regions. They found that the manufacturing and retail industries tended to dominate in the most vulnerable regions, although some vulnerable regions did not have clearly dominant industries. In contrast, mining and construction feature in the least vulnerable regions.