Adelaide - heaps indifferent! (Part 2)

Adelaide has the oldest population on the Australian mainland and it's getting older. It means less workers and usually less money spent by the 70+ on retail and services (except health).

• High percentage of vacant offices and buildings

In Adelaide CBD, vacant office space is at 12 percent. In the suburbs, it's about 19 per cent. Currently, in Port Adelaide, it's about 27 per cent.

• Government corruption becomes endemic

It's currently unknown how deep corruption runs in state and local governments. If we had an ICAC style investigation, we'd know more. Adelaide will continue to slide in to penury unless new businesses are attracted to SA and the youth brain drain is counteracted.

Recruitment culture – a non-virtuous cycle

I run a media and professional writing business with a side specialization in workforce demographics and recruitment. Over the last six years or so, hundreds of clients have come to me for job advice. Many have been pushed from pillar to post by Adelaide's recruitment industry. When they get a job, they find it lacks the standards and professionalism they were used to in the eastern states. Many position descriptions in Adelaide are works of fiction.

As the Boomers and Gen X have found to their chagrin, when they return to Adelaide to look after ageing parents and hunt for work, young recruiters knock them back in favour of fresh-faced local candidates. That's not bad if the selection was on merit but they can't knock back everyone can they? They stay just long enough to put Mum or Dad in to a rest home and then vamoose. I wrote an article about it last year for HC magazine.

On a monthly basis, I have senior and mid level executives call me up to work out how to get out of Adelaide. Like the 'short termer' expatriates above, these locals take with them high order skills and experience as well as their super and investments. In systems theory, Adelaide is a closed environment and closed environments die.

Conclusion

We've looked at just a few of the serious problems that threaten to cripple SA over the next 10 years. By far the most serious is a disengaged public. If the public doesn't know the true state of the economy or doesn't care; if they think it all boils down to a contest between the Liberals and the ALP in the media, they are dangerously misinformed. These are structural and enduring economic changes, which will concertina the state's economy as the forces of globalism and China's economy expands.

Actions

• Massive advertising boost for international students
• End public service tenure and new hires
• Massive slash of all government red tape
• Dissolve ACC and redistribute North Adelaide to City of Prospect
• Establish equity capital fund for entrepreneurs
• Tax holidays for new large international corporations
• Raise Social Impact Bonds for NFP builds
• Expand SA Government international investment categories
• Start costing Committee of Adelaide and Business SA top ten recommendations
• Inquiry in to age prejudice and SA recruitment industry – promotion of part time jobs
• Put journalists back in charge at The Advertiser and get back to investigative journalism and hard reporting
• Allow bands to play in CBD and suburban pubs up until 1.00 am