This transcript was generated automatically and may contain small errors.
With around 145,000 jobs in these three locations, it's easy to see why there's sets for growth. In this episode, I'm going to open up the details of these three locations, the five-year job growth rate, and help you understand the new jobs being created, as well as giving you an inside peek as to how we use employment data at InvestorKit to better understand area growth. I'm Junge Ma, the lead research analyst at InvestorKit, and let's go. Today, we are talking about one of the influencers of the property market, and that is number of job vacancies. First, let me tell you more about the employment data.
The number of job vacancies data we're using here is from Jobs and Skills Australia website. They have a page for Internet Vacancy Index, and on that page, you can find and download the number of job ads observed on three of Australia's major job portals by month and at state and territory level, GCCSA level, SA4 level, and their own IVI region level. I'll put the link in the show notes. Everyone is saying that job opportunities are all in the capital cities, and we, in many cases, overlook the regional cities. So today, I am going to introduce to you three regional cities with the largest number of job vacancies over the last year.
These three cities or regions are Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, and Newcastle and Lake Macquarie combined. I'm combining Newcastle and Lake Macquarie here because they belong to one SA4, and that is the data available on this Jobs and Skills Australia website. So in Gold Coast, over 2024, the total number of job vacancies observed was more than 69,000. Yes, it is slightly down from the 2022 peak when interest rate was at the historic low level, but if we compare it to where it was five years ago, which was in 2019, it is still 88. 6% higher than that time.
And the second city or region we're talking about is Sunshine Coast. The total number of job vacancies observed over the past year was close to 38,000. Compared to five years ago, we have seen a 110% increase. And the third region we're talking about, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, the total number of job listings were just slightly lower than Sunshine Coast, also close to 38,000. And compared to five years ago, there's a 66% increase.
To give you some context, we know that Sydney and Melbourne are full of job opportunities. Yes, the number of job vacancies there are huge. The total number of job vacancies can be 7, 8, or even 10 times of these regional cities. But compared to five years ago, Sydney's job vacancy number actually has declined by 4%. And in Melbourne, the increase was only 5%.
So we can definitely tell that in the regions, they are experiencing a job boom. As we are seeing abundant job opportunities in these regions, understandably, the unemployment rates in these regions are extremely low. Gold Coast's unemployment rate is now 3. 5%, Sunshine Coast 3. 6%, and Newcastle Lake Macquarie 3.
1%. All at around the lowest level in over a decade. While the number of job opportunities is not the only contributor to property market, it is a big influencer of housing demand. That could be one of the reasons why these regions' property markets are doing well in the past year. In Gold Coast, house prices have increased by 10% in 2024.
Sunshine Coast saw a 9. 7% growth. These numbers may not seem as impressive as what Townsville, Rockhampton, those North Queensland cities are achieving right now. But we have to understand that this double-digit growth is achieved on top of more than 100% last 10-year total growth. At the same time, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie has achieved 6.
3% growth in 2024, recovering from the stagnation post the COVID boom. And in 2025, we expect this growth figure to become bigger as we see market pressure there is increasing. So we were talking about currently available job opportunities, but how about incoming job opportunities or new jobs that will be created in the future? In all of these three cities, we are seeing lots of infrastructure projects going on, providing both jobs during the construction phase and also in the operation phase. I'll give you three examples for each city.
Gold Coast, first one, we are looking at the public Kumara Hospital with more than 400 beds. In construction phase, it will create 3,100 construction jobs. While in operation, it will create at least 1,000 staff given the more than 400 beds and thousands of supporting jobs around the hospital. And then the second project we're looking at is the Foxwell Day Hospital. It's a private hospital near Kumara as well and also with 400 beds.
Again, with 400 beds, we are looking at more than 1,000 staff just direct in the hospital when it's in operation. And then the third is a transport project, which is the G-Link light rail extension. Estimated to be completed in mid-2026 and now it is creating 760 construction jobs during the construction phase. And Sunshine Coast, the first project we are looking at, another transport project, and that is direct Sunshine Coast rail line. A huge project in stages.
Stage one is estimated to be completed in 2032 and that is 2,200 construction jobs created from 2026 to 2032, just in the first stage. And the second project is a healthcare project, Oceanside Health Precinct. In full operation, it will be creating 12,000 jobs. Part of it has been in operation, but more phases are under construction. And the third project we are looking at is a Maroochydore Town Centre PDA.
It is a 15 to 20 year long-term project and over the life of this project, we are looking at 15,000 jobs created. So as you can see, these three regional cities, they not only have thousands of current job vacancies to offer, but also have lots of potential for future growth. And the abundance of current and future job opportunities are contributing positively to their property market. But before we end this episode, once again, I want to emphasize number of job opportunities is an important influencer of the property market because of its contribution to housing demand, but it can never be examined in isolation. When we examine the property market pressure and its growth prospect, we always want to examine all related influencers and all market indicators to get a full picture.
While the large amount of job opportunities is fantastic, it's only one piece of a big puzzle. If you've got any questions on job growth and how it affects property prices, comment below and Arjun and I will do our best to get back to all of you. My name is Junge Ma, the lead research analyst at InvestorKit, and I will see you soon.
