Hunter Insight Dashboard

Economic Update - June 2026

The University of Newcastle’s Institute for Regional Futures’ Insight Dashboard tracks socio-economic conditions in the Hunter. The dashboard is based on the Hunter Research Foundation Centre’s databank, which has been collected over 60 years. This is the most comprehensive collection for any region in Australia.

This dashboard of economic updates is designed to give decision-makers in government, industry, and the community the latest data on the Hunter’s performance across key indicators. The dashboard draws upon national and regional data sources to deliver insights about the Hunter region. These updates are provided regularly throughout the year, in addition to the Hunter Insight Series.

The dashboard is a snapshot of just some of the total data collected by the Institute for Regional Futures. For more information, please contact irf@newcastle.edu.au.

National economy

Trends: National economic growth has moderated but remains positive, with through-the-year growth of +2.5% to the March quarter 2026.

Latest: In the March quarter 2026, Australia’s GDP grew by +0.3%, slowing from a stronger +0.9% in the December quarter 2025. With population still growing, this points to subdued growth on a per-capita basis. Annual growth was +2.5% (chain volume measures).

Data source: ABS Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product.

At the national level, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data shows a quarterly rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of +0.3% for the March quarter 2026. This is a step down from the previous quarter’s rise of +0.9% and leaves the 12-month rate of growth at +2.5% (chain volume measures). The slower quarter was driven by net trade rather than weak domestic demand: net trade subtracted 0.8 percentage points from growth, even as private investment rose strongly. On a per-capita basis, GDP fell 0.1% in the quarter (up 1.0% over the year).

Key themes from the ABS Australian National Accounts, March quarter 2026 release:

• Household consumption rose 0.5% in the quarter (2.5% through the year) and added 0.3 percentage points to growth. The household saving ratio fell to 6.2%, from 7.0% in the previous quarter, partly reflecting the unwinding of energy bill relief.
• Government final consumption fell 0.2%, as the end of energy bill rebates reduced social-benefit spending, partly offset by higher defence expenditure; public investment rose 0.9%.
• Private investment rose 3.6% and was the largest single contributor to growth (+0.7 percentage points), led by a 16.3% surge in machinery and equipment as data-centre investment ramped up across New South Wales and Victoria. Dwelling investment rose modestly (0.7%).
• Net trade subtracted 0.8 percentage points from growth, with exports down 1.1% and imports up 2.1%.
• Mining gross value added fell 1.5%, with coal output down 8.1%, partly offset by a 2.4% rise in iron ore mining.

See ABS for more info.

Data source: ABS Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product.

Business performance

The NAB Group Economics monthly survey gives a read on business activity in NSW, and by extension regions like the Hunter. To May 2026, the survey put business conditions in NSW at around +2 (compared with around +3 nationally), while business confidence was around -16 in NSW and around -14 nationally. Conditions reflect current trading, while confidence is more forward-looking and tends to move faster with global developments.

Across key sectors relevant to the Hunter, NAB survey evidence points to a sharp split between weak confidence and still-positive conditions. The standout development has been a steep fall in business confidence — in NSW, nationally and globally — driven by the shock of the US–Iran conflict, which disrupted energy markets and global trade before a ceasefire was reached in June 2026. Confidence dropped to deeply negative levels, with sentiment weak across effectively all industries. Business conditions, by contrast, have continued to fluctuate but remain in positive territory, indicating that current trading is holding up even as firms turn cautious about the outlook. For the Hunter, mining (including coal) remains the main area of caution, with restrained investment and hiring intentions, while transport, logistics and utilities continue to benefit from steady bulk-export and infrastructure demand, and construction and business services operate with elevated capacity utilisation and labour constraints.

Data source: NAB Group Economics

Household spending

The ABS Monthly Household Spending Indicator shows household spending continuing to grow, up around +4.9% in current prices over the year to April 2026. In NSW, spending growth has been led by services, with food spending also higher, while spending on alcohol and tobacco has fallen. Discretionary expenditure has been supported by recreation and culture and by miscellaneous goods and services.

The consumer price index rose +4.2% over the year to April 2026. Inflation has picked up over recent months and sits above the Reserve Bank’s 2 to 3 per cent target band, having moved up from the low-3 per cent range through 2025.

Data source: ABS Monthly consumer price index indicator

The ABS publishes specific price data on housing-related expenses to give better insight (at the national level) into the price movements of purchases, rents and other expenses. Rents are still rising, while new dwelling prices have risen more modestly. Electricity prices have moved higher as various state and federal rebates have unwound.

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Hunter

Employment

Employment in the Hunter (see below and footnotes for region definitions) has continued a modest upward trend. Over the most recent month, employment changed by around 1,800, and over a three-month horizon by about 2,300. Over longer horizons, employment is up around 5,900 over six months and around 7,400 added over the past year (about +2.0%), reaching roughly 371,000. This points to an underlying trajectory of gradual growth, albeit with month-to-month volatility. Over the same year, NSW employment grew by around 60,600 (about +1.4%), so the Hunter has broadly kept pace with the state in percentage terms.

Note that for the Hunter, employment statistics are collected at the Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4), including the SA4s of ‘Hunter Valley excluding Newcastle’, and ‘Newcastle and Lake Macquarie’, but excluding the Mid-Coast LGA which is classified in the Mid North Coast SA4 region. Hence data for the Hunter Region in this section excludes the Mid-Coast LGA.

Data source: ABS Labour Force, Australia, Detailed

Unemployment

Data source: ABS Labour Force, Australia, Detailed

Labour market conditions in the Hunter have softened over recent months, broadly in line with NSW. The overall unemployment rate has held at around 4.5%, similar to the NSW rate of 4.5%, after sitting closer to 4.0% late in 2025. The increase is more pronounced among young people, with youth unemployment (15-24) at 10.6% in the Hunter, just below the NSW rate of 10.9%. These rates are now close to a notional figure of around 4.5% for the ‘non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment’, or NAIRU. Unemployment rates far from the NAIRU are expected to influence wages growth and inflation; the recent move back towards the NAIRU points to a labour market that has come off its tightest point. Note that the values expressed here use a 3-month moving average.

Data source: ABS Labour Force, Australia, Detailed

Employment - Vacancies

Industry-level (SA4) employment reporting for the regions is currently on pause at the ABS - the latest detailed industry cut for the Hunter is only current to August 2025. In the interim, we draw on the Internet Vacancy Index (IVI) published by Jobs and Skills Australia, which tracks online job advertisements and gives a more timely read on labour demand in the region. The two views below show how vacancies in the Hunter are tracking relative to NSW and peer regions, and where demand for labour is growing or easing by profession. Data from Jobs and Skills Australia is for the “Newcastle and Hunter” region, which corresponds to the two Hunter SA4s of ‘Hunter Valley excluding Newcastle’ and ‘Newcastle and Lake Macquarie’, but excludes the Mid-Coast LGA which is classified in the Mid North Coast SA4 region.

The chart below indexes online job vacancies to 100 at January 2020, showing the increasingly higher vacancy rates in the Hunter and Illawarra compared to Sydney and Australian averages. There is thus a growing demand for labour in the region, outstripping main labour markets in Sydney and nationally.

The next chart shows the change in vacancies by occupation over the most recent 12 months, highlighting which professions are driving demand for labour in the region and which are softening.

Data source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Internet Vacancy Index

House prices

Data source: NSW Govt Rent and Sales Report

The latest data shows housing prices in the Hunter continuing to strengthen, with momentum clearly lifting over the past year. In the December quarter 2025, the Greater Newcastle Area combined indicator (Cessnock, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Newcastle and Port Stephens) rose by 3.7% over the quarter and 10.6% over the year, reaching 874 (in $000s). This is a strong and broad-based rise across the five core LGAs, with all five posting gains over the quarter and over the past 12 months. Over the six months to December 2025, the largest increases among the core five were in Cessnock (11.6%), Newcastle (9.9%) and Port Stephens (7.6%), followed by Maitland (5.9%) and Lake Macquarie (3.5%). Gains were widespread outside the core five as well, led by Dungog (21.8%), Singleton (10.2%) and Mid-Coast (8.1%). Even with recent gains, several Hunter LGAs remain below the NSW median value level.

Data source: NSW Govt Rent and Sales Report

Rental prices

For renters, the latest quarterly data (March 2026) indicates that rents are still edging higher rather than stalling. The data below tracks median weekly rent for 3-bedroom stand-alone houses. Users can view either the median value by LGA, or each LGA indexed to September 2010 (showing relative rent growth before and after that point). The latest release from the NSW Govt Rent and Sales Report extends to the March quarter of 2026. Across the Greater Newcastle Area (Cessnock, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Newcastle and Port Stephens), median rents rose 2.0% over the quarter and 6.3% over the year.

Data source: NSW Govt Rent and Sales Report. Data indexed to start 2009.

In the six months to March 2026, rent movements were positive across almost all Hunter LGAs. The strongest gains were in Muswellbrook (+9.4%) and Lake Macquarie (+6.9%), followed by Port Stephens (+5.8%), Mid-Coast (+5.8%) and Cessnock (+5.5%). Newcastle rose 4.9%, while Maitland (+3.3%) and Singleton (+3.0%) recorded more moderate increases. Upper Hunter Shire was the exception, easing 3.6% over the half-year.

Data source: NSW Govt Rent and Sales Report

House prices to annual rent ratio

The ratio of house prices to annual rent has continued to edge higher, reflecting the recent strengthening in house price growth relative to more moderate rent growth. A rising price-to-rent ratio indicates that, on a rental-yield basis, housing has become relatively less attractive, with rents rising more slowly than prices over this period. Internationally, a ratio of 20 is often considered a baseline, but Australia, and the Hunter, remains well above this level, reflecting the high cost of home ownership. The peak in house prices observed in 2022 is mirrored in the price-to-rent ratio, highlighting that rents did not experience the same surge as house prices at that time.

Data source: NSW Govt Rent and Sales Report

Building approvals

Despite the acknowledged need for a significant increase in housing stock, there is still a lag in building approvals coming through (see figure below). Data for 2026 is to date and hence reflects only the first part of the year. Apartment approvals rose in 2023, eased back, and lifted again in 2025 (to around 720) but remain below pre-COVID levels. House approvals, the dominant type of building in the region, declined from a peak of around 4,000 homes in 2021; after a stronger 2024 (around 3,600), full-year 2025 eased to around 3,100. In comparison, the Committee for the Hunter has called for funding for 40,000 new homes for the region. This data is available by Statistical Local Area 2 (SA2) level, and thus the data presented here includes SA2 areas in the Mid-Coast LGA (see comment in footnotes).

Data source: ABS Building Approvals

The geographic spread of building approvals is reflected in the charts below. The figure shows the cumulative number of building approvals by type since 2016 for the whole of the Hunter. For housing, the dominance of approvals in the outer-middle regions of the Hunter is evident, with house approvals concentrated in the Branxton, Thornton and Morisset areas. The urban areas in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie see a concentration of apartment approvals, with few new house approvals. Mid-density housing (semi-detached, row and terrace houses) is spread over a combination of urban areas and the outer SA2s.

The Institute for Regional Futures explored the issues surrounding housing in the region at Hunter Insight Series: Building a Healthy Housing Market.

Greenhouse gas emissions

As Australia transitions to a net-zero economy, there will be significant changes for the Hunter region. The dashboard includes the latest available data on emissions, and will incorporate energy statistics to reflect this transition. However, there is currently a lag of around four years on local-scale GHG emissions, with the last available data published by the NSW Government being for 2021. As such, this data is not yet updated, and repeats information provided in the previous economic update.

In 2021, 48 Mt or 37% of NSW emissions were in the Hunter. This is despite the region having only 8% of the NSW population. Sixty-eight percent of emissions are due to electricity generation. Sixty-three percent of these emissions are due to consumption of electricity (so-called scope 2 emissions) outside the region. Adjusting for these emissions results in 27 Mt of emissions in the Hunter, still 21% of the state’s emissions.

On a per-capita basis, emissions in the Hunter are 61 t/capita, and, after adjusting for exported electricity to other users outside the region, 34 t/capita. This compares to an Australian average of 19 t/capita (National Greenhouse Gas Inventory).

Progress in emissions reduction is being observed, particularly as some of the ageing coal-fired power stations in the region are either being retired or reducing their capacity utilisation. In 2021, Hunter emissions decreased by approximately 7%, primarily due to changes in electricity generation, with a notable decline in fugitive emissions from fuels as well.

Data source: NSW Net Zero Emissions Dashboard

A more detailed view of emissions by sector is provided below. In this view, for electricity, so-called “scope 2” accounting is used, where emissions due to electricity generation are assigned to the electricity customer (and thus emissions due to electricity exported from the region are not included).

Data source: NSW Net Zero Emissions Dashboard

Scope 3 GHG Emissions: Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions are those related to economic activity other than direct fuel and electricity consumption. This accounting of emissions provides a background to additional opportunities to decarbonise for industry, yet are often difficult to realise because of measurement issues and the need to involve multiple stakeholders. The Scope 3 emissions of industrial production in the Hunter have been estimated based on a unique combination of data from the EXIOBASE global MRIO model, national IO tables and local IO data from REMPLAN.

The chart below shows greenhouse gas emissions by aggregated source and destination sectors in the Hunter region. Emission sources are broken down by sector and colour: agriculture, forestry and fishing; mining; manufacturing; electricity and other utilities; construction; services; and transport. Further detail is available upon request, with emissions broken down into supply chains. The scope 3 emissions shown below exclude scope 1 and scope 2 emissions.

Manufacturing is the largest contributor to Scope 3 emissions in the region. The manufacturing sector’s Scope 3 emissions are close to 15 Mt of CO2-equivalent (CO2-e). Aggregate emissions are visible in the chart below, but due to the broad nature of the sector, these emissions are spread over many sources. Some key contributors to the results are scope 3 emissions from mining sources and from indirect electricity use due to non-ferrous metal manufacturing; agricultural emissions from meat product manufacturing; and emissions from cement and lime preparation for concrete manufacturing. The IRF provides insight into organisational scope 3 emissions in the region. Contact us below for more information.

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For more detail on the Hunter Insight Dashboard please contact the Institute for Regional Futures

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* The data presented here for the Hunter region includes the local government areas (LGAs) of Cessnock, Dungog, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Mid-Coast, Muswellbrook, Newcastle, Port Stephens, Singleton and Upper Hunter. However, the ABS collects and reports data by Statistical Area which does not fully align with this definition. The Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4) classification, commonly used for reporting economic statistics, includes the above LGAs in two SA4 areas comprising the Hunter Valley region but classifies the Mid-Coast LGA in the Mid North Coast SA4. At the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2), the SA2 areas that are part of the Mid-Coast LGA (including Taree, Gloucester, Old Bar, Bulahdelah, Forster, Tuncurry) are included in the data presented for the Hunter. The building approval data is available at SA2 level. For housing rental and sales data, the NSW Govt Rent and Sales Report provides aggregate median values only for the Greater Newcastle area based on old statistical subdivisions, but which corresponds to the LGAs of Cessnock, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Newcastle and Port Stephens.

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Suggested citation: Institute for Regional Futures. “Hunter Insight Dashboard, Economic Update – June 2026.” University of Newcastle. March 2026. https://www.newcastle.edu.au/research/centre/regional-futures/hunter-insight-dashboard.

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Disclaimer: The information contained herein is believed to be reliable and accurate. However, no guarantee is given as to its accuracy or reliability, and no responsibility or liability for any information, opinions, or commentary contained herein, or for any consequences of its use, will be accepted by the University, or by any person involved in the preparation of this report.