Millennials moving to regional areas as job opportunities prove attractive

A report from the Regional Australia Institute has found more than 50,000 millennials moved to the nation’s regions in the five years to 2021.

Transcript

00:00 It really is a big shift from the census period to 2016 to the latest census period in 2021.

00:09 The millennials are moving to the regions for a whole range of reasons and you've mentioned

00:14 their affordability is a big driver.

00:17 But the other big driver is employment and career opportunities.

00:21 It's not well known that regional Australia is experiencing a jobs boom and we consistently

00:27 see month on month over 90,000 jobs available across rural and regional Australia.

00:33 So this millennial cohort, this 25 to 39 year old are really taking advantage of those opportunities.

00:41 And what are the areas that they're moving to?

00:43 I saw that there've been big growths in say the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast, but

00:48 places like that still have really high rental costs, don't they?

00:53 Yeah, look, they do.

00:54 I mean, you know, it continues to be those larger regional centres that the second tier

01:01 cities that attract, I guess, the net migration numbers.

01:05 But if you look at the millennial movement, we're seeing over 154 LGA areas who've experienced

01:14 a surge in millennial.

01:16 And this is what we call our heartland region.

01:18 So these are the smaller rural areas that are more isolated or the larger centres that,

01:25 you know, are again more isolated.

01:28 This is and often these are inland areas.

01:31 So, you know, whilst coast always used to be king, this is a really interesting trend

01:37 that we're seeing and a change in our demographic appetite.

01:41 And we believe this is being driven by affordability.

01:45 There are also challenges in terms of infrastructure, keeping up housing shortages.

01:51 So how do you keep pace with population growth when there are those challenges?

01:56 Yeah, look, we know that housing is an issue.

01:59 And this really, you know, this really came out of as part of the growing pains of COVID.

02:04 You know, before COVID regional communities were, you know, crying out for more people

02:11 to move to the regions.

02:12 And whilst people were moving, they were perhaps weren't moving at those higher numbers.

02:17 So housing, I guess, across the whole nation, but in particular, in our regions has been

02:24 a court short.

02:25 Now, we have the benefit of hindsight.

02:27 This census period took us to August 2021.

02:31 We're now in 2023.

02:32 You know, we can see across the board, the work that's been done, whether it's federally

02:38 state based and local government, and of course, you know, we're seeing enormous innovation

02:44 coming through, but you can't build houses overnight.

02:47 And you certainly can't build houses if you don't have the people, the tradies, the skills

02:52 that we need to actually build that infrastructure.

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