Economy
See also: Australian economySouth Australia's average annual employment for 2009–10 was 800,600 persons, 18% higher than for 2000–01. For the corresponding period, national average annual employment rose by 22%.
South Australia's largest employment sector is health care and social assistance, surpassing manufacturing in SA as the largest employer since 2006–07. In 2009–10, manufacturing in SA had average annual employment of 83,700 persons compared with 103,300 for health care and social assistance. Health care and social assistance represented nearly 13% of the state average annual employment.
The retail trade is the second largest employer in SA (2009–10), with 91,900 jobs, and 12 per cent of the state workforce.
The manufacturing industry plays an important role in South Australia's economy, generating 11.7% of the state's Gross State Product (GSP) and playing a large part in exports. The manufacturing industry consists of automotive (44% of total Australian production, 2006) and component manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, defence technology (2.1% of GSP, 2002–03) and electronic systems (3.0% of GSP in 2006). South Australia's economy relies on exports more than any other state in Australia.
State export earnings stand at A$10 billion worth per year and grew by 8.8% from 2002 to 2003. Production of South Australian food and drink (including agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, fisheries and manufacturing) is a $10 billion industry.
South Australia's economic growth has lagged behind the rest of Australia for some time (2.1% from 2002 to 2003), but performance seems to be improving. South Australia's credit rating was upgraded to AAA by Standard & Poor's Rating Agency in September 2004 and to Aaa by Moody's Rating Agency November 2004, the highest credit ratings achievable by any company or sovereign. The State had previously lost these ratings in the State Bank collapse. South Australia's Gross State Product was A$48.9 billion starting 2004, making it A$32,996 per capita. Exports for 2006 were valued at $9.0bn with imports at $6.2bn. Private Residential Building Approvals experienced 80% growth over the year of 2006.
South Australia's economy includes the following major industries: meat and meat preparations, wheat, wine, wool and sheepskins, machinery, metal and metal manufactures, fish and crustaceans, road vehicles and parts, and petroleum products. Other industries, such as education and defence technology, are of growing importance.
South Australia receives the least amount of federal funding for its local road network of all states on a per capita and a per kilometre basis.
Read more about this topic: South Australia
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant’s economy is a coarse symbol of the soul’s economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)