![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/25611a2557110140db195f09bab958d41123ba0d1fd3aea47f7432f64621ef20.png\")
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August 12, 2026 \u2014 5:01am<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Western Sydney has emerged as the state\u2019s most dynamic entrepreneurial hub and is on track to have more businesses that employ staff than eastern Sydney within 15 years.<\/p>\n Almost 23,000 employing businesses were added in the western suburbs between 2017 and 2025, compared with just over 10,000 across the eastern region of Sydney, analysis by peak body Business NSW<\/a> shows.<\/p>\n Blacktown council area stood out for entrepreneurship between 2017 and 2025, with a 17 per cent increase in businesses that employ others (after adjusting for population growth).<\/p>\n Canterbury Bankstown had the next-fastest growth in that period (up 13.5 per cent), followed by Hawkesbury (13.2 per cent) and Fairfield (13.1 per cent).<\/p>\n On current trends, western Sydney will have more businesses that employ staff than eastern Sydney by 2041, the analysis showed.<\/p>\n A new report by Business NSW, which examines the future of entrepreneurship in the state, said recent infrastructure investments<\/a> in western Sydney, along with its relatively young population<\/a>, increasing industrial diversity and rising skills levels, had underpinned business growth in the region.<\/p>\n Api Yuganathan, co-founder of HealthcareLink, a specialist online recruitment platform, has witnessed the dynamism of western Sydney\u2019s business culture first hand.<\/p>\n Her company, which employs 15 people, is based at a start-up hub in North Parramatta that supports small and medium-sized firms to develop and access new opportunities.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople with new business ideas come in and use this space all the time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been inspiring to see the ideas people are bringing forward, and the innovative solutions smaller companies are developing, to address real-world challenges. People here in western Sydney are running with a huge variety of business opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n Business NSW president Joseph Carrozzi said the growth of entrepreneurial activity in western Sydney<\/a> pointed to a fundamental shift in the way Sydney is evolving.<\/p>\n \u201cWestern Sydney is emerging as one of the most important economies in the country, thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of local people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In Sydney\u2019s east, business creation hotspots included the Bayside local government area, which includes Kingsford Smith airport, with a 12.7 per cent rise in employing businesses between 2017 and 2025. Randwick council also stood out as a centre of business growth (up 11.1 per cent) apparently driven by its new light rail connection, along with major health and research institutions in the area.<\/p>\n The Sydney City and North Sydney councils \u2013 which take in the traditional central business district and North Sydney job hubs \u2013 have the city\u2019s highest density of businesses relative to population, followed by Willoughby, Woollahra and Hawkesbury.<\/p>\n The Business NSW report, which coincides with the peak body\u2019s 200th anniversary, found that while business creation is strong in NSW, too few are making the leap from being a business of one to becoming an employer of others.<\/p>\n In 2000, 8 per cent of NSW\u2019s workforce owned and managed a business with employees. Today it is less than 5 per cent \u2013 the lowest level in at least 35 years.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that 8 per cent rate of entrepreneurship still held today, NSW would have an extra 135,000 entrepreneurs potentially running employment-generating businesses,\u201d said the report, which was done in collaboration with Sydney University Business School.<\/p>\n The trend is more significant among women, who were already less likely than men to run an employment-generating business. For men, the share of employing business owners compared with all employees peaked at 10.6 per cent in 2001 and declined to 6.7 per cent by early 2026.<\/p>\n The share of women in the workforce who own employing businesses peaked at 6.4 per cent in late 2001 but had fallen to 2.7 per cent by early 2026. This means the share of women in the workforce who own employing businesses fell by 56.9 per cent from its 2001 peak, compared with a 36.6 per cent decline for men \u2013 a gap of 20.3 percentage points.<\/p>\n Yuganathan, who established her company in 2013, said women sometimes find it difficult to access the support they need to expand their businesses.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that women lack great ideas for start-ups,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in the early stages, access to funding and finding the right mentors can be tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n The report found the proportion of new businesses that take on employees within their first year of operation has declined from 35 per cent in 2011 to 27 per cent in 2025.<\/p>\n Carrozzi said NSW has a \u201cmissing middle\u201d of small businesses that fail to scale into becoming medium ones, leaving our state worse off.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an economic issue which must be addressed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The report found regional areas are disproportionately affected by the decline in entrepreneurship, with some towns \u201ceven facing net declines in business counts over the past decade\u201d.<\/p>\n It calls for a \u201cfuture entrepreneurs strategy\u201d to make it easier for business start-ups to generate employment.<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Api](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cdb5339bc7a771a78f9125760b99e7c3c243fed2.jpeg\")
Api Yuganathan, the co-owner of HealthcareLink, a business based in western Sydney Wolter Peeters<\/p>\n![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786494494_469_25611a2557110140db195f09bab958d41123ba0d1fd3aea47f7432f64621ef20.png\")
Matt Wade<\/a> is a senior economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August 12, 2026 \u2014 5:01am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[178],"tags":[79,18,236,19,17],"class_list":["post-632265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117079711718759402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}