EMPLOYMENT IN AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY
Another measure of the significance of an industry is its contribution to total EMPLOYMENT. Employment (and unemployment) data are used as social indicators by government, and research and welfare organisations. Employment is also an indicator of economic activity, although turning points in the employment series tend to lag turning points in the business cycle.
Graph 15.4 shows shares of total employment in 2000–01 and 2010–11, classified by industry according to ANZSIC 2006. These data were derived from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) monthly Labour Force Survey and relate to the civilian population aged 15 years and over. The data reflect averages across the four quarters of each year to remove seasonal effects. People are considered to be employed if they were in paid work for one hour or more in the reference week, or worked for one hour or more without pay in a family business or farm. Employment is further described in chapter 8 LABOUR.
In 2010–11, 11.4 million people were employed across all industries. From an industry perspective, the Health care and social assistance industry employed the greatest number of people (1.3 million persons or 11.4% of total employment). The next largest industry was Retail TRADE (10.9%), followed by Construction (9.1%) and Manufacturing (8.6%).
These industries were also the main employing industries in 2000–01, although Health care and social assistance has displaced Manufacturing as the largest employer. Between 2000–01 and 2010–11, the Health care and social assistance share of total employment increased by 1.8 percentage points and the Construction industry share of total employment increased by 1.7 percentage points. Conversely, Manufacturing’s share of total employment declined by 3.1 percentage points.