Falling staff numbers at one of Belconnen's largest tenants has made its office space some of Canberra's emptiest.
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Downsizing and refurbishments at the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Benjamin Way headquarters have combined to push up office vacancy rates in the town centre.
Belconnen has the highest rate of empty office space among Canberra's centres, as nearly a quarter of its stock sat vacant in the first six months of 2019, the Property Council of Australia's latest snapshot shows.
The centre has been host to a reshuffle as the Home Affairs Department took up empty space created in ABS House following staffing cuts at the nation's statistics bureau.
Refurbishments in the high-grade building have also reduced the amount of space needed for its resident employers, contributing to Belconnen's higher vacancy rates.
Consultants JLL's ACT executive director, Andrew Balzanelli, compared the vacancy rates of Canberra's city centres at a breakfast marking the release of the Property Council of Australia's latest report on Thursday.
While Belconnen had the highest vacancy rate, it also had fewer Commonwealth public service tenants than other centres, he said.
"That vacancy rate will come down in Belconnen in the second half of the year as there has been an increased level of interest there," he said.
No high-grade office space was vacant in Barton's enclaves, nor in the Woden and Tuggeranong city centres.
Civic also had low vacancy rates for A-grade stock, but lower-grade offices had higher vacancies across the ACT, particularly in Woden.
The Property Council report showed despite cuts to the public service under the Coalition government, the ACT's labour market has risen since 2014 on the back of a growing private sector.
Public administration and safety jobs fell about 4 per cent to 64,000, but jobs in professional and technical services grew to 26,000, the education and training sector grew to 24,000 jobs and construction jobs hit 20,000.
Mr Balzanelli said government outsourcing had driven growth in Canberra's private sector, naming IT, consulting, security and defence industries as the city's growth areas.
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He said Canberra's economy would remain dependent on the public service, particularly in the office market, where the federal bureaucracy leases half of the stock.
The ACT property snapshot predicted broad-based white collar employment growth and leasing sector demand would continue buoying the Canberra office market.
Parts of ABS House went on the leasing market last year after the Bureau of Statistics downsized its office space in response to several rounds of redundancies.
The bureau in February 2018 announced it would axe 100 jobs, the majority of them in Canberra, following voluntary redundancies the previous financial year.
The Home Affairs Department, which has offices directly opposite ABS House, announced last year hundreds of its staff would begin working out of the bureau's building.