5000 jobs in 50 days: Service sector dominates employment growth

ALMOST four in five workers are now employed providing a service to others as the sector increases its dominance in the national economy.

Brayden Hearn joined Hughes chauffeured cars straight from high school and works in its reservations area. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

ALMOST four in five workers are now employed providing a service to others as the sector increases its dominance in the national economy.

Employment Department data shows 78 per cent of workers now are employed in the services sector, up from 70 per cent in 1990.

Fifty years ago, in 1966, only 54 per cent of workers were employed in the services sector, while in 1910 it was about 40 per cent.

Jobs have come at the expense of manufacturing, in particular, which in the past 25 years alone has slipped from being the second biggest employing industry.

It once accounted for 14 per cent of all workers but now makes up just 7 per cent.

Employment in construction has increased from 7 per cent to 9 per cent since 1990 to be the third greatest employing industry.

Today, more people are employed as domestic and commercial cleaners (168,900) than farmers (142,200), while sales workers (1.13 million) also this year outnumber labourers (1.12 million) for the first time.

The Australia Institute principal adviser Mark Ogge said many people associated service jobs with roles such as barista and others requiring a low level of qualifications to be employed.

However, it also encompassed highly skilled jobs in industries such as healthcare and social assistance, education and training and professional services as well as retail and hospitality.

“We live in a modern, service-based economy,” he said.

“If you think of the countries in the world doing well, are they the ones that pack stuff up and ship them overseas?

“The projections for jobs growth show the service sector is going to be most of all the jobs growth – mining will shrink, manufacturing will stay about the same, construction might grow a bit.”

Geneveve Du Plessis at work at the Holiday Inn. For the first time, sales workers now outnumber labourers. Picture: Bob Barker.

Mr Ogge said many roles were public facing but those who did not want to directly serve others still had jobs available to them.

“A professional and scientific services job might be sitting in a lab all day and working on a computer, or out in a field doing environmental stuff,” he said.

“In education and training, some of it is public facing, but some of it is research, there's public policy and administration and making the whole thing work.”

The latest Hudson Report by Hudson Recruitment Australia and New Zealand finds employers in the technology, professional services, not-for-profit and financial services are most likely to be hiring new professional staff this year.

Resources and mining employers are the least likely to put on new staff by Christmas.

Executive general manager Dean Davidson said the four major industries would continue to grow in the next three years.

“What we’ve seen over the last 18 to 24 months is the employment growth that’s happened across the domestic market here, it has really been (those) four industry sectors that have been most prominent,” he said.

“Technology is the main one. They want individuals with tenure, experience to manage large technical projects.”

But as workers were promoted into middle management, it was creating opportunities for juniors to be employed, he said.

News Corp Australia is campaigning to find 5000 jobs in 50 days for first-time job seekers, as well as tackling youth unemployment.

So far 8029 jobs have been listed across Australia.

Do you have a job for a first-time jobseeker? Email [e-mail] to join the campaign.

Jobseekers can visit facebook.com/5000jobs to find vacancies in their area.

Originally published as 5000 jobs in 50 days: Service sector dominates employment growth