Aged care workforce grows most rapidly
Latest Australian Bureau of Statistics Labour Force Quarterly reports show that the sector known as “health and social assistance” has pipped “retail” to become Australia’s biggest employing industry, now providing jobs to 1.2 million Australians, compared to retail’s 1.18 million.
It now employs 1 in every 9 Australians.
Within the sector the fastest-growing type of work is aged care, now employing a record 205,000 Australians, up from 163,000 just a year before.
“It will keep getting bigger,” says labour market specialist, Mark Wooden, of the Melbourne Institute, reported in the Fairfax media.
“The entire sector will one day account for 1 in every 2 workers. Go back a century and only 1 in 35 Australians worked in health and aged care. But whereas we have been able to automate other industries, it’s hard to automate this one.”
Retail employment has grown roughly in line with population, but health and aged care employment has grown far faster, doubling in a little over 20 years.
“There was a time when 1 in 2 of us worked in agriculture,” says Professor Wooden.
“It’s now about 1 in 30 – a tiny amount – yet we are making more food than ever.”
“It’s a similar story with manufacturing which used to employ 1 in 4 Australians – we have found ways to make things using fewer people. To some extent we will be able to use expensive technologies to do that in health, but in the rest of the caring sector about the only way to provide more is to employ more people.”
New Top Ten (‘000 workers)
- 1197.5 Health and social assistance
- 1182.1 Retail
- 1002.3 Manufacturing
- 995.4 Construction
- 856.0 Professional and scientific
- 796.1 Education and training
- 730.3 Accommodation and food
- 681.4 Public administration & safety
- 556.6 Transport and postal
- 432.7 Wholesale
- 418.5 Financial and insurance
