Economist Stephen Koukoulas said part of the reason for the growth could be due to the natural disasters which took place over the last three years, from major bushfires to devastating floods, which would have increased demand for insurance services.
The healthcare sector saw the largest number of new workers. An additional 289,300 staff took on work from November 2019 to November 2022, a 16 per cent increase. That rise – which includes an additional 85,400 hospital workers – hid a fall in the number of staff in the beleaguered residential care sector, which shed nearly 21,000 workers over the same period.
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Despite the strength in the jobs market, not all industries experienced booms. The number of people working in agriculture, fishing and forestry fell by 8 per cent, and the number of information media and telecommunications workers fell by 9.4 per cent.
Real estate has just 1000 more workers than it did in the November prior to the pandemic. The number of real estate agents and rental and hiring workers peaked at 237,800 in February, and has been falling as the property market cools in part due to rising interest rates.
Koukoulas said the number of workers in the industry tracks with the housing cycle.
“When people are just not selling or buying, you don’t need many real estate agents,” he said.
The fall in manufacturing jobs was a continuation of the sector’s 10-year decline, Koukoulas said, while the fall in agriculture could be partially due to the lack of international workers, including backpackers, who have been unable to enter the country to pick fruit and vegetables.
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