This was published 8 months ago
Better educated, more discerning workers set to seize future jobs
By Sean Parnell
Brisbane Life StudyCredit: Nordacious
Brisbane will remain the state’s jobs powerhouse, according to a government agency that predicts 70 per cent of new jobs in the coming years will be in south-east Queensland.
That is great news for the people who live here. Access to education, and a decent job, is a key determinant of quality of life.
The latest projections from Jobs Queensland show the biggest growth by 2025-26, by number of workers, will be in health care and social assistance roles. As a proportion, more new jobs will be in management and commerce.
But to provide qualified workers, Brisbane still needs to improve average education levels that trail those of other, larger cities. And the impact of technology, particularly artificial intelligence, remains to be seen.
According to the 2021 Census, the proportion of the Brisbane population with a higher education degree had increased, to 27 per cent. But that was still lower than Sydney (33 per cent) and Melbourne (32 per cent), even with more people from southern states moving north.
While university intakes have suffered since the start of the pandemic, even higher-level tertiary education should be in demand over the coming years. Jobs Queensland predicts that, overall, 9.9 per cent of the state’s workforce will have a postgraduate degree by 2025-26. But, reflecting the changes to the jobs on offer, 24.3 per cent of additional workers hired in that time will have a postgraduate degree.
Polling done by the Queensland government, and released this month, found 69 per cent of people in the south-east felt they had access to affordable, high-quality education – the highest of any region.
Professor Paula Brough, director of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing (WOW) at Griffith University, said she believed Brisbane was well-placed to upskill the workforce for the jobs of the future.
Brisbane will need better-educated workers to fill the jobs of the future.Credit: Tony Moore
“I think Brisbane is doing really well, and it’s a really exciting period to be here, and be recognised for what we’re doing on the national and international stage,” Brough said.
Brough said better-educated workers, and more competition between employers, should allow some job-seekers to be more discerning. She said the technological and workplace changes seen in the early years of the pandemic had allowed people to carve out careers that suited their lives – and boosted diversity of the workforce at the same time.
“I remember my first work around work-life balance, which would have been in probably the early 2000s, where the term was just starting to emerge in the academic fields,” she said.
“It was originally seen as a way to employ mothers with young children, or return women to the workforce. Now it has become so much more. It’s now such an issue that new workers will choose where to work, and what type of work they will do, based on the work-life principles of an organisation.”
As the population ages, Queensland Treasury expects workforce participation to decline, along with average hours worked, even as traditionally under-represented groups have greater job opportunities.
The ageing population is driving the increase in health and aged care workers, which has also required changes to skill migration to keep up with demand.
Brough said the gig economy had allowed some workers, particularly students, school-leavers and the less skilled, some flexibility around their hours. However, that came with a lack of protections and support, and might not suit everyone.
“A couple of generations ago, for the majority of workers, there was the opportunity of a job for life,” she said.
“Now, there is more change, and that provides more opportunities. We’ve always had part-time workers, and they are the ones who are traditionally more likely to move from job to job as their situation changes.”
Over the next five to 10 years, Brough expects to see digital technology, particularly AI, have a “huge transformative effect on workplaces”.
“I would encourage workplaces to embrace it, rather than resist it,” she said.
“The issue will not just be how and when to use it, it will be how to help the workforce maintain and keep up with this technology. And all this transformation will create new jobs.”
Brough said knowledge workers were in a better position to strive for work-life balance, and work from home if they desired. She felt the workplace research and experimentation being undertaken in Brisbane, including by her centre, would allow the city to be at the forefront of change.
An analysis by the Australian Urban Observatory, based on 2016 data, found 28 per cent of Brisbane residents, mostly on the fringes of the city, had employment in the same statistical area as their place of residence. It is used as measure of liveability because working near home reduces travel time and provides the conditions for better health.
By comparison, the rate in Sydney and Perth it was 31 per cent, and in Melbourne it was 29 per cent.
The latest South-East Queensland Regional Plan acknowledges existing economic clusters, including inner-Brisbane, and aims to deliver higher density housing so that more people can live closer to work.
This article was produced in collaboration with the Australian Science Media Centre, with support from the Walkley Foundation-administered Meta Public Interest Journalism Fund.