The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has just released a report 'A different perspective on the "two-speed" economy' which found during the first stages of the resources boom, unemployment was actually very low across the entire country.

The author of the RBS report, chief economist Kieran Davies, used labour market data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to gauge the unemployment rate in 69 regions nationwide.

More than 90 per cent of the regions examined had unemployment of 6 per cent or less, with the lowest unemployment rates mostly in regions outside the resource-rich states.

The report found South East NSW, including the towns of Goulburn, Queanbeyan and Cooma had the lowest unemployment level at 1.7 per cent. The strength of the labour market was at its lowest in the Gold Coast and in Western NSW.

Unemployment was at just 2.2 per cent in the Hunter Valley in NSW and employment remained strong in Ipswich and in the regions to the south of Melbourne and to the north of Sydney.