Cairns-based blogger KS at Loose Change has a couple of recent posts on news that may suggest a (modest) economic recovery is underway in the Far North:

Airline flights boost

Unemployment falls

According to the latest OESR regional unemployment brief released today, the Far North unemployment rate (12-month average) has fallen 0.6 per cent from 9.4 per cent in December 2010 to 8.8 per cent in December 2011, but since this is a 12-month average the actual current unemployment rate may be significantly lower than this.