The Premier of NSW, The Hon Gladys Berejiklian MP, recently addressed 550 business leaders at Western Sydney Business Connection’s 'State of the Region Address', where she outlined how the NSW Government’s projected investments are shaping Western Sydney’s future.

The Premier highlighted the extraordinary jobs growth in Western Sydney as a direct result of record Government investment in infrastructure and subsequent private investment.

“Over the next four years, the Government will invest more than $22 billion on major projects to tackle congestion, connect communities and improve services across this region,” the Premier said.

“The Western Sydney commitment is almost a third of our total, state-wide infrastructure commitment of $73 billion."

The latest ABS figures confirmed that since 2011, 142,000 new jobs have been created in Western Sydney – almost 40 per cent of the 361,000 jobs created across the whole of NSW in that time.

"Western Sydney jobs have surged by 12.3% - faster than NSW as a whole and faster than any other state and territory, she said" 

"As the latest ABS figures confirmed last week, the Western Sydney unemployment rate of 5.5% today is the lowest since 2008 and over the past two years alone, Western Sydney has created more jobs than Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania combined, the Premier added.”

As a leading voice in the region, WSBC General Manager Amanda Brisot said, “There are a number of pressing issues facing Western Sydney’s labour market and we need to address them now."

"Whilst we are definitely experiencing employment growth we need to see a dramatic increase in knowledge jobs to ensure and uplift the socio economic conditions within the region."

"Let’s start discussing who will populate the innovation corridors and medical research hubs and how we will attract talent to the region." 

"We have over 300,000 workers leaving Western Sydney every day; how do we connect the people of Western Sydney with local job opportunities?" 

"How are we preparing our young people for what’s to come given half of the people 25 years or younger are currently enrolled in courses that will be dramatically impacted by automation in the next 10-15 years?"

"If Western Sydney doesn’t put strategies in place to develop the labour market and ensure that the talent resides in the area, we will never fully realise the benefits of this once-in-a-generation investment boom." 

"WSBC’s Visitor Strategy initiative, due to be released in December this year, will go some way to attracting talent to the region by positioning its lifestyle attributes and stimulating vibrancy within the visitor sector, creating informal sector and entry level jobs. We must then leverage these opportunities by creating new career pathways within the sector, Ms Brisot added.”

Western Sydney currently accounts for 8% of Australia's GDP, represents 10% of Australia's population, and is expected to account for 15% of Australia's population growth in the next 25 years

Urban growth of this magnitude is a rarity in the cities of advanced nations, so we can't afford to waste the significant momentum and investment. We are at a crucial time of development to establish a legacy that will affect many of Australia's next generations.

Ms Brisot noted that the human capital solution requires collaboration and commitment from both industry and Government and WSBC will continue to provide that important link between the two.

Western Sydney Business Connection is the prime facilitator of business engagement and growth in Western Sydney.