Aussie jobs that are booming, along with those projected to all but vanish

Jobs are back and certain industries are on a massive recruitment drive. If you’re looking for a pay rise, now’s the time to jump ship.

Finally some good news on the economy. Jobs are back, baby! Aussie companies are hiring again. For all the people who lost their jobs in 2020, now looking nervously at looming cuts to the JobSeeker payment, this is reason to hope. Your chances of getting a job interview have gone up.

So, what industries should you be applying to?

As the next chart shows, your odds are improving in almost every industry. More firms were hiring in October than they were in September across most sectors. But the strongest chance of finding an employer who is looking for people are in the accommodation and food services sector or in the health care and social assistance sector. (Dental nurses, polish up those resumes.)

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Some industries are recruiting more than others. Picture: Supplied

Not every company is hiring, but there are companies hiring in every industry. And according to official data, they are not just filling in roles where someone quit.

Companies want more staff. There are seven growing companies for every shrinking company, the best ratio since April (when it was more shrinking than growing). Australia is recovering. Slowly but surely.

The employment situation is sunniest in the west. And I say good luck to them. After a few years of being Australia’s economic basket case, Western Australia is bouncing back. You can see it in the following map, which also shows Victoria lagging the pack.

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National Skills Commission survey of Australian businesses: the labour market impacts of COVID-19 shows while WA is booming, Victoria is struggling. Picture: Supplied

SHOULD I LOOK FOR A JOB? AND HOW?

If you’re looking for a job right now, it’s vital to remember this: Over 25 per cent of jobs are found by word of mouth. You expect to get ahead on Seek alone? You’re not making the best of your chances. Especially not if your resume is undistinguished. Talk to people. Network. That’s how it is done.

If you’re not looking for a job right now, maybe you should be.

People get pay rises by changing job. This is anecdotally true. Everyone knows some completely ordinary colleague that went off to a new company and is suddenly making an extra $15,000 a year. But it is not just anecdotes that make it true. The effect is so real and so pervasive that we can even see it in the economic statistics. When people stop changing jobs, wages growth falls.

“More frequent job switching is associated with higher real wage growth,” said a Treasury official in 2019. “Research suggests that a one percentage point decrease in the job switching rate, for any given demographic or cyclical conditions, is roughly associated with a half percentage point decline in average wage growth.”

It is hard to muscle up the courage to ask your boss for a raise. Luckily it is likely to be more effective to apply for a few new jobs. Cash in, Australia.

WHAT ABOUT THE LONGER TERM?

The data above tells us what industries were hiring people in October. It’s fresh data but it looks only at the past. What will happen in the future?

Luckily the Australian Department of Jobs does regular projections of what industries will be growing in the future.

As you can imagine, manufacturing and agriculture are expected to shrink. Those are not the wisest career choices. If you think that telecommunications or real estate seem like growth industries, think again. As the next graph shows, they’re not expected to add a lot of jobs. Instead the growth will be in construction, in education, in professional jobs, and most of all in health care and social assistance.

Healthcare is expected boom in the next five years while agriculture and manufacturing will languish, according to Department of Job and Small Businesses 2019 Employment Projections. Picture: Supplied

Anyone can see that ‘Health care and social assistance’ is the biggest opportunity. It has jobs galore. What is it though? Well, it includes dietitians, midwives, naturopaths, ambulance drivers, optometrists, physiotherapists. People who work at the blood bank. Medical receptionists. Doctors and nurses too, obviously, and many more. That’s all the health care side.

Social assistance is also in there. That includes childcare workers, marriage guidance counsellors, youth welfare workers, aged care workers.

So if you work in healthcare and social assistance you’re dealing with either human bodies or human emotions. You might not be surprised to hear that the industry is full of women. This is one of the big reasons female employment is growing so strongly – women are over-represented in the kind of industries that are growing fast. If you ever go to a hospital, pay attention: Almost everyone wearing a lanyard is a woman. As the next graph shows, the healthcare and social assistance sector is getting more female over time.

More women work in healthcare and social assistance than ever and it’s projected to boom as an industry. Picture: Supplied

One reason the healthcare and social assistance sectors are growing faster than other industries is because they’re harder to do offshore. A worker in a factory in China can make a test tube, sure. They can’t do a blood draw, change a patient’s sheets or drive an ambulance to your house. These jobs are safe and the pay growth is steady.

The pandemic has given us all a chance to reset a bit. If you’re wondering what to do next, a job in healthcare or a related field is probably a very good choice.

Jason Murphy is an economist | @jasemurphy. He is the author of the book Incentivology