A friendly welcome to new residents and businesses to the Coffs Coast.

Australia’s population keeps growing with an average growth of 1.4% every year.

There are currently more than 24 million Australians.

Over 5 million live in our largest city: Sydney; approximately 75,000 live in Coffs LGA, making it the 25th largest city in Australia.

The number for Coffs is expected to grow in 20 years to just under 100,000.

Population growth helps the economy grow: more people need more services and goods. Population increase is an important factor in the growth of the economy in Australia.

Whether population grows or declines, there are challenges: several countries in Europe for example are struggling with decrease of population and a strong ageing population.

An increase in population also has challenges, e.g. housing (affordability), infrastructure, jobs, environment.

Let’s focus on one of these examples: sufficient jobs need to be created considering an increase of the population and workforce, and not just in Sydney and Melbourne.

Important is to have a highly skilled and educated workforce, that assists with building the resilience of a region.

Developing ‘human capital’ is an effective way to boost productivity and increase the level of participation in the economy. This can be achieved by:
• increasing the skills and qualifications in the workforce;
• lifting workforce participation rates (e.g. supporting re-skilling mature age workers);
• ensuring skills match the industry demand (not just training because of the sake of it: training always must be relevant for employers and employees/jobseekers).

Jobs will be created by existing employers and by new businesses and organisations.

It is not easy to be pro-active and attract new employers to the Coffs Coast. We are up for some tough & quality competition with most cities and regions on the East Coast are ‘fishing in the same pond of potentially ‘mobile’ employers or investors’.

Most of our ‘region competitors’ have an investment climate similar to us.

A comparative advantage is a topic of relative strength or specialisation: in what area are we different and better than for example Port Macquarie, Central Coast, Tweed Coast or even larger areas like Newcastle and the Gold Coast? Businesses can also use a region’s comparative advantage to build an advantage, which is also developed through the combination of factors such as education, facilities, infrastructure, resources, skills and the ability to innovate.

Small- and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) create most of the jobs on the Coffs Coast.

We need to continue to support initiatives and investments that increase jobs in our region.

The Coffs Coast Chamber of Commerce is the partner for local businesses.

We are here to help you do well.

Become a Member of our strong and well respected Chamber network: you will be eligible for more free service than you would expect. For example, a Free high quality two-hour Workplace Update Seminar in Coffs Harbour on 24 May. Please contact us today 6651 4101 or exo@coffschamber.com.au for more info or to discuss how we can assist you.