Northern Tasmanian Development Corporation (NTDC) is the regional economic development agency for the North and North East of Tasmania.
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It is owned by the seven councils in the region and governed by an independent industry sector-based board.
Our role is to significantly improve our regional economy, jobs, and take-home pay, by working collaboratively with key stakeholders.
A major requirement of the City Deal (established in 2017) was for NTDC to produce a Regional Economic Development Plan in 2018 to ensure the benefits of the City Deal are leveraged for the whole region. This is on schedule, and due by the end of this year.
To understand the size and scale of the challenge to make significant improvements to our economy, NTDC (with funding support from the state government) commissioned the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR) to provide our economic history and model some future scenarios on how to grow the economy.
This report is still in draft, but we have learned a lot about the fine detail of our economy in recent times. Our economy has improved markedly over the past 18 months, which is evident through the level of business confidence and positive employment data.
However, there is work to be done to ensure we leverage our current positive regional economy to meet the upcoming challenges that have been highlighted to us through the forecasting modelling that has been undertaken.
The important thing to note is that NTDC is not just about planning – we are also communicating and implementing solutions to the issues that have been identified with the support of our local government authorities and our regional stakeholders, like the Launceston Chamber of Commerce.
Three key immediate challenges have been identified and work has now commenced on addressing these challenges. They are: our working age population, investment attraction and industry development and exports.
This week we will delve into the details of our population challenge. The other two challenges will be discussed in the coming weeks.
If we consider a “business as usual” case for our economy based on the Tasmanian Government forecasts projected for the next decade or more to 2031, we will experience a big decline in our ‘working age population’ (18-64s) from current levels.
Although our population does modestly increase – this is primarily due to our current older demographic aging into retirement during this period.
If we are to build our economy to our “best case scenario” we will actually need an additional 10,000 workers (that reflects the 5000 that we lose through our ageing demographics and 5000 additional workers required for our growing economy).
To start addressing this challenge NTDC have established a population taskforce, chaired by City of Launceston general manager Michael Stretton and with representation from the state government, and all our major regional stakeholders.
After reviewing all the data from many sources, the type of issues that need to be addressed include:
- identify the jobs/skills we are having trouble filling
- attract and retain more international students
- attract and retain skilled migrants
- support humanitarian refugees (to want to stay within our community through jobs and community connections).
- attract new business people who have mobility and can use our high NBN connectivity
- encourage our over 64s to continue contributing to our community
We all know we have a wonderful lifestyle and there are many benefits to living in Northern Tasmania, we need to combine this message with job availability, and outline the range of essential services required by families.
We would love to hear your suggestions on how to address this challenge – let NTDC know via email: admin@ntdc.org.au or via our Facebook page.
- Maree Tetlow is the chief executive of the NTDC.