The Impact of Higher Unemployment on Areas Within Sydney

This paper describes the distribution of registered unemployment in Com monwealth Employment Service Offices within Sydney in the years 1971-79. In 1979 adult unemployment was concentrated in the centre of the urban area and teenage unemployment in the west. The greatly increased level of un employment since 1975 had not made major changes in this spatial pattern except in the case of adult female unemployment which in the early 1970s was concentrated in the western suburbs, but in the late '70s was highest in inner Sydney. The probable reason for this change is that when unemployment rates rose married women became discouraged workers and/or did not register as unemployed. As a result cyclical changes in the locations of concentrations of unemployed women may reflect imperfect data collection rather than economic causes. Real unemployment of adult women is probably still con centrated in suburban areas as is teenage unemployment while adult male unemployment is mainly a problem in the core of Sydney.