According to Conus economist Pete Faulkner 10.3 per cent of citizens of the Glen Innes local government area are looking for work but can’t find it. And the New England area has a relatively low participation rate as well; just 59 per cent of us either have a job for at least one hour a week or are actively looking.

The rate is more than double the state average of 4.5 per cent. Unemployment has been increasing since September 2017.

All statistics are based on Conus LGA figures, which are a seasonal trend based on data produced by the department of employment. Their latest data is from September.

“At the moment there’s no sign that that’s likely to reverse,” said Mr Faulkner. 

“You tend to find that with very small regional council areas, you either get very high levels of unemployment or you get very, very low.

“Because people say – look if I’m living somewhere where unemployment is so high –  they’ll simply move and therefore you end up with nobody being unemployed in some very small regional areas because they can’t afford to be unemployed. If I can’t get a job there I go somewhere else.”

Glen Innes also probably has a low participation rate. The participation rate measures the number of people either looking for work or working at least one hour a week.

New England has a participation rate of 59.2 per cent, trending upwards. The average for regional NSW is 60.1%. That’s much lower than the average for Greater Sydney where 67.5 per cent of people are participating in the jobs market.

Other LGAs in the area also have high unemployment rates, including Tenterfield (10 per cent), and Moree Plains (9.4 per cent). Glen Innes is just higher than Wentworth in the far south west of the state, with 10.2 per cent unemployment. The unemployment rate in Armidale is 7.2 per cent, 8.8 per cent in Bellingen, 10 per cent in Clarence Valley and 6.6 per cent in Tamworth.

The unemployment rate has been on an upwards trend for a year. Glen also endured a period of high unemployment in 2016, peaking at 12.9 per cent. The data starts in March 2010; in that month the unemployment rate was 7.3 per cent and the lowest on its record.