More People

The ABS recently released their revised estimated resident population figures, after adjusting their original estimates using the data from the 2016 Census. This is the normal 'reset' button that the ABS applies to their annual population estimates every five years.

No real major changes in the fastest growing LGAs, mostly reorganising the specific order. Some of these fast growing LGAs actually had significant increases to their estimated resident population as a result of the Census. In other words, they were growing even faster than what the ABS had thought.

Figure 1 Fastest Growing LGAs (by % Increase)

Source: Lucid Economics; ABS (2017)

The following tables shows the largest adjustments made from the original 2016 estimated resident population, which shows the difficulty the ABS had in estimating population in regional areas.

Table 1 Largest Population Adjustments (by LGA)

Source: Lucid Economics; ABS (2017)

Population growth is very important to the economy as it drives roughly a third of the economy. If your economy is growing (or shrinking), there will be natural flow-on impacts to the economy.