iPlan - a NSW Government initiative coordinated by
Department of Planning

1.4 Town Center Employment

1.4.1 Employment Generators

There are five major employment generators within the town center:

• Southern Cross University's Tweed Heads campus is located on Brett Street at the southern end of the town center. The University has around 350 students studying at the Tweed campus and additional itinerant students studying at the Murwillumbah and Lismore campus' using the library and other facilities. Due to the fluctuation of enrolments in different departments from semester to semester the number of staff and their total full-time equivalent hours tends to vary. However, there is a core of approximately 10 full time academic / administration staff based at Tweed Heads and another 10+ moving between campuses. There are also between 3-5 contract staff employed for fire, security and cleaning duties.
• The Tweed Hospital Campus (which includes the district hospital, community health and mental health) has a total of approximately 890 workers. There are 480 full-time employees, 257 part-time employees and 152 casual workers.
• Tweed Mall has the largest concentration of retail facilities in the Town center Precinct. There are approximately 9 Tweed Mall shopping center management staff which includes 4 administration/office employees, 4 cleaners on site at any given time and a security guard on site.

It is estimated that approximately 2 staff are employed in each of the 88 specialty shops at any given time which results in a further 176 employees. Coles estimates an approximate 140-150 workers, of which 65% (91-98) are full-time and part-time, and 35% are casual (50-53). Target estimates around 8 full-time employees, 16 part-time and 85 casual employees with approximately 25-30 typically in the store at any one time.

In total, Tweed Mall employs approximately 430 full-time, part-time and casual employees.

• Twin Towns has a number of clubs under the one umbrella including Twin Towns Services Club, Twin Towns Juniors, Twin Towns Resort and Club Banora. The total number of workers for all clubs mentioned above is 204 full-time, 371 part-time and an average of 34.3 contract hours per week. There are a total of 42,167 club members.
• Tweed Heads Bowls Club has 142 staff on the payroll of which 38% (54) are full-time, 12% (17) are permanent part-time and 50% (71) are casual employees. In addition to these staff there are approximately 18 sub-contracted staff (12 cleaners and 6 greenkeeper / grounds staff). Total membership at the club totalled 15,297 as of April 2003 and is currently around 12,900 (August 2003).

In addition there are an estimated 400 additional full-time equivalent employees elsewhere in the precinct.

An estimated 2,400 people are employed in the town center in full-time, part-time and casual jobs. These represent approximately 1,800 full-time equivalent jobs.

The majority of these workers live outside of the town center. The distribution of employment in the town center is summarised in the following table: