BRISBANE is slowly creating suburban ghettos on its edges, as new figures show an “us and them’’ divide developing in the city.

The suburban unemployment figures from the Federal Government show Brisbane’s wealth is contracting to the gentrified inner city where jobs remain plentiful, while some of the outer suburbs are ­developing entrenched, intergenerational unemploy-ment, according to dem­o­grapher Mark McCrindle.

JOBLESS: State's worst rate since 2003

RATE: Unemployment ‘steady as she goes’

“There is a pretty clear trend. The challenge that Brisbane has is it has not decentralised the workforce as much as the other capitals like Sydney and Melbourne,’’ Mr McCrindle said.

The southern capitals had planned suburban business hubs that Brisbane had failed to create, leaving the CBD as the major job centre.

“The key feeder of social disintegration and the fraying of the social fabric stems from a high base rate of unemployment,” he said.

“If you look at Ipswich and Logan, you are looking at sustained, intergenerational unemployment.

“The population of greater Ipswich is significant but nothing is happening from an employ-ment perspective.”

media_camera The stark difference in unemployment for inner and outer Brisbane.

He said Logan had almost one in five people unemployed (19.7 per cent) and its situation was compounded by a growing population and poor infrastructure and transport.

The effect is not uniform. Some outer suburbs are doing well and have very low or falling unemployment and some inner suburbs are doing badly, but the trend is clear.

The fall in inner-city unemployment also comes at a time when the national and state unemployment is trending upwards.

University of Queensland economics professor Paul Frijters said the issue was probably related to housing prices.

“We are probably looking at the effect of increased property prices in the middle (and) the unemployed are moving to the outer suburbs,” he said.

“You see that the overall unemployment numbers for Brisbane haven’t changed substantially at all (from 5.7 to 6.0 for Brisbane and from 5.9 to 6.0 for Queensland), so you are getting gentrification and slow formation of ghettos in particular suburbs. Only people with jobs can afford to live in the City.”

Bernard Salt on the changing work force Bernard Salt talks about the shift from full-time work to part-time, and also looks at the way unemployment is affecting us.

He said the move back to the City could be related to traffic congestion, new migrants, and a glut of youngsters moving into apartments.

“Particularly the congestion means that rich people no longer want to live far away from the city centre to which they have to commute.

“The poor have no option but to commute or simply live cheaply out of the way.”

Mr McCrindle said the situation was a double whammy for those in the outer suburbs, because they had few local jobs and had to pay high transport costs to get to the City.

In some suburbs, the difference in just a year has been stark. Caboolture has jumped from 11.5 per cent unemployment to 15.7 per cent while Ascot has fallen from 5.2 per cent to 2.8 per cent, and Fortitude Valley has gone from 10.4 per cent to 6.7 per cent.

The huge loss of mining jobs has yet to show up in figures, with some towns buoyed by coal seam gas and coal still at levels regarded as having full employment.

media_camera Dakoda Kays of Nambour has found work. Pic: Glenn Barnes

Jobs and friends are hard to keep

THERE are millions of human stories behind Australia’s grim job statistics and on the Sunshine Coast where Dakoda Kays lives, many of them belong to fresh-faced youths.

Aged 19 and only two years after graduating from high school, Dakoda is a hardened veteran of job interviews.

His resumes have been discarded by hundreds of potential employers.

“Around 60 per cent don’t even bother to reply,’’ he said.

Friends in jobs or university courses have dropped off.

“Almost all my friends from school have gone off to Brisbane or university or TAFE and I only have about three whom I still talk to – and they’re employed,’’ he said.

Dakoda is lucky to have secured a few hours a week of bar work beginning this week.

With a youth unemployment rate hovering between 17 and 18 per cent – one of the highest in the country – he is acutely aware that a job is a precious and fragile thing on the Sunshine Coast.

“You do see and feel the discrimination against people who are unemployed,’’ he said, adding that those searching for a change of jobs rather than a first job always appear to have an advantage.