CONSTRUCTION industry workers are taking home the region’s highest pay packets, new figures have revealed.
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Australia’s leading job search site, Seek.com.au, collated all the jobs advertised on its platform and found that construction jobs in the Blue Mountains and Central West region were offering an average salary of $120,000 per year.
The figures also found that local construction workers were taking home each year more than workers in similar jobs right across the state.
The next best paid workers in the Blue Mountains and Central West were employed in the consulting and strategy sector ($115,883 a year) while engineering sector workers were earning an average salary of $111,000.
The Blue Mountains and Central West region includes the Bathurst, Mudgee, Orange, Oberon, Blayney, Cowra, Lithgow and Cowra areas.
Not-for-profit organisation Regional Development Australia Central West said the construction sector was the fifth largest contributor to the local economy.
It contributed $642.46 million or 6.7 per cent of the total industry gross regional product (GRP) in 2014.
Mining contributed 21.9 per cent of GRP, manufacturing 7.5 per cent, agriculture, forestry and fishing 7.3 per cent and health care and social assistance 7.3 per cent.
“Bathurst, Lithgow and Orange accounted for approximately 63 per cent of the NSW Central West region’s estimated GRP in 2014,” Regional Development Australia Central West said.
“The GRP contributions for Bathurst were primarily driven by key sectors including manufacturing, education and training, public administration and safety, and health care and social assistance.
“The mining and energy sectors were the major contributors to Lithgow’s and Orange’s economy.”
The mining and energy resources sector offered the fourth highest average salary in the Blue Mountains and Central West region at $105,000 per annum.
The human resources and recruitment sector was at the fifth position with an average salary of $100,750 per year.
The consulting and strategy sector, however, was the sector which saw the highest increase (128 per cent) in the number of jobs advertised in the past year.
It was followed by the sports and recreation sector with 67 per cent more jobs and the education and training sector, which advertised 60 per cent more jobs.