It’s official, Parkes has the largest and youngest population, the most number of businesses, the most registered vehicles and the highest annual wage compared to our neighbours.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the latest regional statistics from 2013.
Parkes has peaked at the top of the table in most of the categories compared to surrounding towns of similar size - Forbes, Cowra, Narromine and Wellington.
The Parkes shire has the highest population of 15,087 residents with Cowra our closest rival at 12,551.
Parkes and Forbes each have more women than men.
Parkes has 99 more women while Forbes has 52.
The others have more men than women living their towns - Cowra has 169 more men, Narromine 90 and Wellington a whopping 457.
We have the youngest median age though - 39.4 years.
That’s 6.1 years younger than Cowra (45.5).
We also have 1,329 businesses.
That’s 183 more than Forbes, 193 more than Cowra, 410 more than Narromine and 466 more than Wellington.
Parkes is ahead with the average annual wage ($44,731), that’s $3,065 more than our closest rival Wellington ($41,666).
Cowra is at the bottom of the annual wage ladder with $37,932.
Agriculture is the main employment industry for all our neighbours with Narromine employing 25.3% in the field.
Interestingly Parkes’ main industry is retail, employing 11.6% of our working population.
12,216 vehicles are registered in Parkes, Cowra has 10,609, Forbes 8,074, Wellington 5,888 and Narromine 5,669.
Forbes takes the highest average house value with $349,000 - $31,000 more than Parkes.
Compare Parkes to surrounding towns on the table on page 2.
