Focusing on the experiences and perspectives of Australians who live and work outside major metropolitan areas, this interim report looks at the trends shaping the labour market from a workforce and skills perspective in regional, rural and remote Australia. Feedback on this interim report will help shape the research agenda underpinning the Regional, rural and remote jobs and skills roadmap.

Key findings

• Australia’s labour market remains reasonably strong, despite some recent slowing in economic activity. 
• Labour market challenges are more pronounced in regional and remote areas. 
• Australia’s higher education system is not meeting current skill needs in regional and remote areas.
• Coastal regions have benefited from strong population growth, driven predominately by net internal migration. 
• Regional and remote areas have an older age demographic. 
• The ageing of the population presents a number of challenges for the workforce, reducing the labour supply available as older workers retire.
• Increasing demand for more highly skilled jobs has had an uneven impact across regions.
• A number of regional areas across Australia will be disproportionately impacted by the impact of decarbonisation due to the high share of workers in transitioning sectors. 
• Recruitment difficulty rates have been consistently higher in regional Australia than capital cities.
• Occupational gender segregation is closely linked to remoteness, with regional and remote areas with lower population density have distinctly higher gender segregation than their capital city counterparts.