New South Wales & Victoria remain our nations strongest performing economies, CommSec Research’s latest State of States July 2016 report reveals.
The quarterly report which looks at key economic indicators including population growth, equipment investment and construction, shows that both NSW & Victoria are keeping ahead of our other states and territories when compared against decade averages.
Below is a brief snapshot of our states’ performance.
Chief economist at CommSec Craig James likened the results to a tale of reversed fortunes for the resource dependent mining states of Queensland and Western Australia, which had both seen a downturn in their economic performance since the mining boom tailed off.
“Effectively we’ve got another two-speed economy… this time around its NSW and Victoria leading the way, rather than the mining states such as Western Australia.”
Against their 8 key economic indicators, NSW took the top rank on five occasions, whilst Victoria placed second to NSW on 6 of those key indicators.
“NSW has retained its top rankings on population growth, equipment investment, retail trade, and dwelling starts and added economic growth. But NSW drifted to second spot on unemployment. NSW improved to third ranked on construction work and drifted to third on housing finance (previously second).
“Victoria is ranked second on a number of indicators (economic growth, population growth, retail trade, business investment, construction work and housing finance). Victoria has moved from second ranked to fourth ranked on unemployment.”
Victoria now has the fastest annual economic growth rate in the nation, up by 3.6 per cent on a year ago…
As always, population growth has been a major driver of housing demand.
For NSW, population growth has been one of the bigger drivers for the local economy. Mr James notes that housing growth has been key along with equipment investment and retail trade.
“Reasonably strong population growth that’s driving demand for housing, and more homes being produced, more homes being bought, and that’s causing knock on effects through NSW, Victoria an the ACT.”
In terms of unemployment, the ACT and NT recorded low unemployment rates, well below 4 per cent, whilst the mining-reliant state of QLD fell from fifth to sixth spot on the rankings.
Over in Western Australia, the unemployment rate is currently estimated at 5.6 per cent, some 26.6 per cent higher than its decade average.
For the full report, click here.
