ABS jobs data demonstrates post-Covid property market shift

We are passing through an era of record job growth, but it is the kind of jobs that are expanding and contracting and their respective impacts on property that is most telling.

Most growth in a single job over the five years to February was in care for the aged and disabled.

How has the pandemic shaped the job market and if so what are the implications for property? This question can be answered by trawling data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Sometimes quite significant trends can be hidden in plain sight.

The ABS has published quarterly estimates of the number of workers across (roughly) 470 jobs comprising the workforce since 1985. These job estimates are based on five-yearly census estimates which are adjusted by survey. Census estimates of more than 1300 precisely defined jobs are the most accurate, but they are not timely.

Nevertheless the survey-adjusted census-based estimates do provide a broad indication of jobs on the rise (and in decline).

I have reassembled the ABS’s quarterly estimates into three eras: five years to February 2025 which includes the onset of and recovery from the pandemic, and the two immediately preceding five-year periods.

Over the five years to February 2025 the Australian workforce increased by 1.580 million workers. The previous era (Feb 2015-Feb 2020) produced workforce growth of 1.258 million workers. And the period previous to that (Feb 2010-Feb 2015) produced net growth of 835,000 workers.

Regardless of what is said about migration outflows and inflows effected by the pandemic (and of students leaving and returning), workforce growth over the past five years is up 25 per cent (or 322,000 workers) over the previous five-year period.

We are passing through an era of record job growth as well as in the population base. Melbourne’s population increase in the year to June 2024 was 142,000, a record. Some 30 years earlier (year to June 1994), and in the wake of a recession, Melbourne added 12,000 net extra residents.

But there is more to this dataset than showcasing the uplift in job (and population) growth. It is the kind of jobs that are expanding and contracting and their respective impacts on property that is most telling.

A rise in the number of delivery van drivers reflects a fundamental shift to online retail over the past five years.

Most growth in a single job over the five years to February was aged and disabled carer up 149,058 or a flat average of almost 2500 net extra jobs every month for 60 consecutive months. And the oldest baby boomer is not yet 80. The aged-care (property) market has a long way to rise yet.

Also on the up over the past five years is the job of store-person (up 38,191 jobs) as well as delivery van driver (up 19,363 jobs). Clearly these data points reflect a fundamental shift from in-store to online retail. It also reflects rising demand for industrial space and/or logistics facilities.

At the other end of the spectrum are jobs that have contracted over recent years including checkout operators, down 60,287 positions since February 2020.

I attribute the mass-learning experience of downloading the ostensibly “failed” CovidSafe app (in April 2020) to teaching Middle Australia about the use of technology. A flow-on effect has been, for example, the post-Covid use of self-checkout kiosks in supermarkets and discount department stores.

The quarterly survey data shows there has been a 29 per cent drop in the number of commercial cleaner jobs since February 2020 which reflects, I think, the rise of and stubborn commitment to work from home.

I also wonder if a diminution in forklift jobs (down 12,729 positions or 17 per cent) over the past five years doesn’t reflect greater use of automation in warehouses (eg via the use of robots).

In the previous era (Feb 2015-Feb 2020) aged and disabled carer still topped the job-growth ranking but with a lesser net growth figure of just 81,826 jobs. Aged-care jobs are rising at an exponential rate.

And checkout operator was then still very much on the rise (up 27,912 jobs). Both chefs and commercial cleaners also made the Top 10 growth jobs in the second half of past decade.

Waiter was a job on the rise in the first half of last decade, up 20 per cent or 21,436 jobs. Today the waiter population (123,214 in February 2025) has yet to return to its pre-pandemic glory of 144,560 jobs in February 2020. We have passed peak waiter, evidently.

Which brings me to my overarching observation. The jobs on the rise are in the suburbs, in the home, perhaps attached to health precincts, while those contracting are seemingly being replaced by robots (eg diminution of forklift drivers) or indeed by humanity’s capacity to learn new skills (eg diminution of checkout operators).

Demand for accountants jumped 27 per cent or 48,954 jobs over the past five years. However, “accountant” was the single job most likely to work from home during the pandemic as measured by the 2021 Census. So, sadly, a boatload of additional accountants isn’t necessarily going to fill empty CBD office space.

Gone, much reduced or simply slower growing are the many attendant jobs attached to the inner city: the baristas, the chefs, the commercial cleaners.

Here is an insight gathered across a 40-year career in demographics: a social and workplace trend will make itself evident across a variety of datasets and will be apparent from several angles. All evidence including cultural trends will converge on a single intrinsic truth: Australian workers regard WFH as being foundational to their way of life.

If you are getting data insights from one source, from a single survey, from an anecdote, from a policy release by a global CEO, then look for further corroboration within the Australian market.

Because the evidence across the ABS’s labour force job survey, I think, shows a changing property landscape in the post-Covid world. And specifically with regard to office, industrial, retail and even the use and composition of the Australian home.

Bernard Salt is founder and executive director of The Demographics Group; data by Hari Hara Priya Kannan