14th October, 2021
The Morrison Government has established the NERO dashboard that allows government and industry to respond more quickly to workforce trends.
The launch of the Nowcast of Employment by Region and Occupation (NERO) dashboard equips decisionmakers with monthly workforce insights to help drive more targeted local responses.
While experimental in nature, the tool will uncover a range of insights – such as how many hospitality workers are employed in a particular suburb, or how many people are self-employed in each state.
The new launch comes as the Morrison Governments considers how it can best respond to the economic issues presenting as a result of the pandemic, and could lead to better
The NERO data hub, created by the National Skills Commission, provides monthly information on 355 occupations across 88 regions across the nation. Until now, such detailed information was only easily available every five years via the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
NERO uses an emerging methodology called ‘nowcasting’ to highlight workforce trends faster. It uses real-time data, as well as big data techniques such as machine learning, to estimate trends that are more timely, detailed and available more often.
This differs to forecasting in that it doesn’t rely on predicting or anticipating market trends.
The NERO data can also be filtered by either occupation or region and is available for download in various formats.
Some raw predictions can pick up shorter term employment shocks, such as those arising from lockdowns.
For example, in the latest release for chefs in Sydney, it is likely that the dramatic drop in raw predictions from June 2021 to July 2021 corresponds with the start of the current lockdowns in Sydney.
Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business, Stuart Robert, says the new source of labour market insights takes Australian workforce data into the 21st century.
NERO equips decision-markers with a much better understanding of Australian workforce trends, which will reduce risk and drive innovation and investment, he says.
The tool will be a valuable asset for council workforce planners wanting to identify and track employment trends in their region, or better understand occupations in demand.
For example, councils will be able to see how many people in their local community are employed in a particular sector for the first time.
“While in business or in government, we all know that good data drives good decisions, and NERO takes us from a twice decade data cycle to monthly, which is simply incredible.
“By having access to this information each and every month, industry will be better placed than ever to respond to employment trends sooner, which is important to our ongoing economic recovery.”
NERO currently covers data from September 2015 to September 2021. Future updates are expected to be released on the first Wednesday of each month.