General Information » Economy » Sydney Overview

Sydney is a major Asia Pacific financial centre with a triple-A sovereign credit rating. The Sydney Futures Exchange is one of Asia Pacific’s largest financial futures and options exchanges. The city’s economic size is estimated at around US$175 billion (on a par with Singapore), which amounts to 25-30% of Australia’s total economic activity. Sydney is the most multicultural city in the Asia Pacific, with a highly skilled and multilingual workforce. More than 30% of residents were born overseas.



Employment

In the last quarter of 2006, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Sydney’s unemployment rate was 4.6%. The employment rate was 72.3%. According to the UBS Prices and Earnings Report 2006, 14 minutes of work in Sydney buys you a Big Mac hamburger. The global average is 35 minutes, which makes Sydney the world’s ninth best city for purchasing power. Sydney is above the average national wage, with a household mean income of $1,360 per week compared to $1,216 per week in the rest of the country. In terms of vacations, Sydney does not do too badly either. The global average number of vacation days and hours worked each year is 20 and 1,844 respectively. Sydney clocks in at 23 days vacation and 1,682 working hours each year.



Sydney Developments

Sydney’s population is predicted to grow from the current 4.2 million to 5.3 million by 2031. To deal with the additional pressures this will cause, the government anticipates that New South Wales will need the following:

• 640,000 new homes

• 500,000 more jobs

• 7,500 hectares of extra industrial land

• 6.8 million square metres of additional commercial floor space

• 3.7 million square metres of additional retail space

The government’s vision for Sydney in 2031 has Sydney City and North Sydney as the heart of ‘global Sydney’, while the river cities of Parramatta, Liverpool and Penrith will provide more work, cultural and lifestyle opportunities. The rural land extending to the Nepean-Hawkesbury area and the foothills of the Southern Highlands will be protected, as will Sydney’s green areas. Projects in the pipeline include the revamping of the ugly Parramatta Road and the development of a network of major city centres. Some of the projects underway or recently completed include:

• The upgrading of the arterial road network including the Cross City Tunnel, the Lane Cove Tunnel, the orbital motorway network (M4/M7) and the Windsor Road upgrade

• Public transport improvements, including the untangling of rail lines and $1.5 billion for new trains

• Bus reforms – a network of strategic corridors linking key centres such as Parramatta, Ban...