January 16, 2017
New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that employment in the Wide Bay-Burnett’s agriculture sector grew by 15 per cent during the past year.
The Wide Bay-Burnett is Queensland’s largest agricultural area, the ABS says.
It accounts for almost 21 per cent of the State’s total food and fibre production and employs 11,500 people.
This is 1500 more jobs than a year ago, despite some properties in the region being individually drought declared.
According to the ABS, agricultural employment in 12 of the State’s 19 regions declined in 2016, and State-wide there were 2700 fewer jobs overall.
But the Wide Bay-Burnett was one of seven regions that bucked the trend, along with Cairns, Toowoomba, Ipswich, Logan-Beaudesert, Moreton Bay North and Moreton Bay South.
The effect of drought was most noticeable in the Darling Downs-Maranoa and Outback Queensland which suffered the loss of 4700 jobs in 2016 (3000 in Maranoa; 1700 in Outback Queensland).
Townsville (1200 jobs) and the Gold Coast (1300 jobs) also had steep declines, while the remaining eight regions had losses of between 200 and 700 agricultural jobs.
The latest ABS data appears below:
Number Of People Employed In Agriculture
