Unemployment
Unemployment rates were sourced through the Small Area Labour Markets published by the Australian Government and represent unemployment as a proportion of the labour force for a Local Government Area (LGA). The LGA’s included in this report card assessment include: Belyuen, Coomalie, Darwin, Litchfield, Palmerston, Wagait and Unincorporated NT. A single labour-force-weighted average has been calculated for the Darwin Harbour region.
Source: https://lmip.gov.au/default.aspx?LMIP/Downloads/SmallAreaLabourMarketsSALM/Estimates
Scoring method
In order to standardise the reporting scale across all indicators, unemployment rates for each local government area were converted to a 0-100 report card scale using the relationship shown in this graph. This conversion makes the assumption that an unemployment rate of 2% equals a 100% report card grade, and an unemployment rate of 10% equals a 0% report card grade.
Findings
The unemployment rate for the Darwin Harbour region was 5.7% (based on the workforce-weighted annual average for Belyuen, Coomalie, Darwin, Litchfield, Palmerston, Wagait and Unincorporated between March 2020 – March 2021). Unemployment rates for each local government area were as follows: Palmerston (7.4%), Darwin (5.7%), Litchfield (4.2%), Belyuen (3%), Wagait and Unincorporated (2.8%), and Coomalie (2.7%). All unemployment rates showed an increase over the reporting period and were above previous years' rates. This is likely a result of COVID-19 restrictions impacting domestic and international tourism numbers in the region and associated tourism-related jobs.
