upwards of 50, 000 such workers. internal migration, of course, has also played some role, with the rate of net interstate migration to western australia over the past year is the highest for around 25 years ( graph 7 ). it is also worth noting that interstate migration has played an important role in the tasmanian economy, with the situation switching from sizable net inflows to net outflows and back again over the course of just a few years. for a period in the 2000s, internal migration was adding around ½ per cent to tasmania ’ s population annually. today, it is subtracting almost this amount. graph 7 the structural changes that have taken place across the economy have also altered the relative wages in different industries. workers in the resource sector have long been paid higher wages than in many other industries, and this gap has widened over recent years ( graph 8 ). since 2004, average wages in mining have increased by about 10 per cent relative to the average for the economy as a whole. workers in professional services have also experienced faster - than - average increases, partly due to spillover effects from the resources sector. conversely, relative wages have declined in the manufacturing, retail and the accommodation industries, each of which has experienced difficult conditions over recent times. these divergent trends since the mid 2000s stand in contrast to the period immediately before that, when there was less structural change. the overall impression from these various facts and figures is that the labour market has coped reasonably well with the significant changes taking place in the australian economy. while there have been shortages of skilled workers in some areas, these have been fairly limited. workers have moved in large numbers to the industries that are benefiting from growth in asia and the increasing domestic demand for services. they have done this at a time of close to full employment and larger divergences in unemployment rates across the country have been avoided. the adjustment of relative wages has helped, and this adjustment has occurred without igniting the type of economy - wide wages blowout that contributed to the derailment of previous mining booms. bis central bankers ’ speeches graph 8 one reason that things have worked out this way is that the industrial relations system is more flexible than it was two decades ago. the exchange rate appreciation has also been an important factor, helping to maintain a reasonable balance between demand and supply during what has turned out to be a once - in - a - century investment boom. another factor has been australia ’ s monetary policy regime, which has

have been shut out of unsecured markets, particularly since the middle of this year. the composition of secured funding has changed dramatically, with covered issuance accounting for the vast bulk of secured issuance in 2011, compared with a roughly equal split in 2007. the covered market has been the primary funding source for those institutions unable to tap unsecured markets. but the secured issuance data are also significantly affected by “ self - securitised ” issues, both mbs and covered, which are retained on the balance sheet of european financial institutions to access liquidity at the ecb ( see below ). 3 finally, the aggregate figures for europe mask some quite significant differences across countries and institutions with, for example, secured issuance by german institutions almost entirely in the form of covered bonds ( pfandbriefe ) while banks in the netherlands issue rmbs. graph 2 in the uk, the share of unsecured issuance in total issuance is about the same in 2011 as it was in 2007, at just over 50 per cent. however, total unsecured issuance is significantly smaller in 2011 than in 2007. the share of funding from mbs has declined but has been fully compensated for by an increase in the share of covered bond issuance. note that part of this for more detail, see “ recent developments in securitisation ”, european central bank, february 2011. bis central bankers ’ speeches shift reflects a compositional shift in the industry. entities such as northern rock, which sourced a large share of their funding from mbs, were a large part of the market in 2007 but are obviously not so today. a final point on the uk data : the large amount of mbs in 2008 predominantly reflects “ self - securitised ” issuance in order to access the special liquidity scheme ( sls ) at the bank of england ; more on which shortly. graph 3 in australia, the share of unsecured funding has actually increased between 2007 and 2011, in contrast to the other regions. in large part this reflects a compositional effect. a number of institutions, some banks but particularly non - banks, were significantly more reliant on mbs for their funding than the larger banks. following the dislocation in the mbs market, the larger banks now account for a much larger share of the financial sector in 2011 than they did in 2007. graph 4 obviously in australia, the covered bond market is in its infancy, with