People, skills and education

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People, skills and education

People, skills and education

This section provides information on:

average salaries/total remuneration by occupation
availability of competent senior managers and skilled labour
population and ethnic diversity
language skills
education levels and quality
business R&D expenditure
employment levels by industry and occupation

New South Wales is Australia's most populous state, with 7.23 million residents, 4.6 million of whom live in Sydney. The State has a large, skilled and multilingual workforce.

The ethnic and linguistic diversity of New South Wales is a valuable resource that provides distinct business advantages. The availability of non-English language speakers in the State, many with university qualifications, is a key advantage for global firms looking to establish regional operations hubs or customer service centres in the Asia Pacific.

Sydney is Australia's only global city and its business and financial capital. It is one of the world's most multicultural cities, with more than 1.3 million or 30% of Australia's overseas-born residents living in Sydney. Sydney also has the highest proportion of non-English language speakers with a bachelor degree or higher of any Australian capital city.

In 2010, 57% of New South Wales' working age population held tertiary qualifications – the highest proportion of any State. This includes over 1.1 million people with a bachelor degree or higher.

New South Wales boasts the largest number and concentration of knowledge workers of all States, including managers, professionals and technicians, who support the State's dominant services sector. Sydney also has the highest concentration of managers and professionals of any capital city in Australia, reflecting its position as Australia's leading business and finance centre.

The State accounts for a significant share of national employment across all the major industry sectors. New South Wales' particular strengths include finance and insurance, information media and telecommunications and professional, scientific and technical services.

The Government is dedicated to supporting innovation in key sectors, investing in the development of high-level skills and making the intellectual property from institutions it supports available to businesses.

Australia is a leader in cutting edge research across a variety of fields. Australia was ranked first in the Asia Pacific for the quality of its research institutions in 2010. New South Wales is home to advanced research centres involved in many areas of study including electromaterial and geotechnical sciences, quantum computing, broadband technologies, environmental biotechnology, and fraud detection in capital market systems.

New South Wales is home to a number of important Commonwealth research facilities, including Australia's only nuclear research reactor at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), CSIRO Energy Transformed National Research Flagship – a renewable energy research facility - and the National Measurement Institute, Australia's peak measurement body. The State also hosts the National ICT Centre of Excellence and the Australian Centre for Advanced Computing and Communications.