Journey to Work

What does Journey to work data tell us?

Journey to Work data identifies where a region’s resident workforce travels to for work and in what industries they work in.

What does Blayney’s Journey to Work data tell us?

The pie chart below illustrates that almost half of Blayney’s working residents do not leave the Blayney Local Government Area (LGA), with 48% of them (or 1,462) working within the Blayney LGA. This leaves 52% of the working population employed outside of the Blayney LGA the majority of which in the LGAs of Orange and Bathurst.

What are the consequences of a high containment ratio and why is it high?

A high containment ratio can be partly attributed to the diversity of the regional economy; extensive size of the LGA and signi!cant distance to job opportunities in other areas including metropolitan areas. One result of this is that the principal economic bene!ts of a workforce are kept within the LGA with local spending in particular captured within the Blayney LGA.

This also means however, that if the region experiences job losses through business closures particularly in specialised industries or industry "uctuations, resident workers do not have a large employment pool to source new work locally or within close proximity to where they live. They may consequently, find themselves under pressure to leave the region to seek employment within the industry/sectors in which they specialise in. 

What opportunities does this Journey to Work data present?

It is generally considered bene!cial to have high containment ratios due to the economic "ow-on effectsof a resident workforce working locally. The table below illustrates that opportunities potentially exist to develop particular industry sectors to further reduce the loss of working residents to other LGAs and address issues such as ‘retail leakage’ where residents spend their money outside the LGA where they usually reside.

In Blayney’s case, the Mining sector experienced the most loss of resident workers to other regions followed by Manufacturing and Education and Training. Resident workers who leave the region to work in these sectors elsewhere could potentially be captured if industry job opportunities existed locally for them.

Consequently, businesses operating within these sectors could be encouraged to establish operations in Blayney citing the existence of a qualified and available workforce.

The regions of Bathurst and Orange captured most resident workers potentially due to the proximity of these areas to Blayney and the existence of job opportunities within the sectors listed.

What other opportunities does Journey to work data present?

Journey to work data also indicates that workers attracted to the Blayney region for employment predominantly originated from Orange, Bathurst and Cabonne. This provides an opportunity for Blayney to specifically target these workers encouraging them to become new residents citing the benefits of living and working in the same Local Government Area.