Queensland Looks to Space for High Skilled Jobs

Today the State Development Natural Resources and Agricultural Industry Development Committee has released the report on the Space Industry Inquiry, looking at what opportunities there are for Queensland workers and Queensland businesses, all over the State.

What we have found is there are incredible opportunities for Queensland to fill all parts of the space industry supply chain.

The space industry is a natural fit for us. We have some incredible advantages in Queensland.

We have the personnel and the skills – The University of Queensland has produced 130 PhDs from their rocket program.

We have the specialised manufacturing capability.

We have the geographic advantages to host launch facilities, download stations for the satellite data, and hubs to process the data and grow the companies.

We have Advance Queensland, which looks like it was made to build the new entrepreneurial space companies.

We have the companies already in the space economy.

Already there are 30 companies in Queensland that are active in the space industry, and there are 126 space-related organisations with a presence in Queensland.

The Deloittes Report stated the space industry employs 2,000 Queenslanders and contributes half a billion dollars in values added to the Queensland economy, and this is a unique opportunity for regional Queensland.

Many of these companies are setting up in regional hubs, where the agricultural economy uses space products, where there are clear skies and radio silence, and where we have mining and manufacturing expertise.

The space industry has changed remarkably. It is now an innovator’s frontier.

It is more about start up entrepreneurs turning the data sent down by the new generation 10cm by 10cm by 10cm satellites into a range of products.

The space industry is worth $345 billion each year.

Even though we contribute less than 1% to the global space economy, it employs 10,000 Australians.

We want to triple the size of the space industry to $12 billion by 2030 and create up to 20,000 new jobs.