Health Care and Social Assistance is Australia’s largest and fastest growing industry, with a significant number of new jobs added over the past decade. Large shares of workers in this industry are employed as Professionals (42%) or Community and Personal Service Workers (31%). This industry has a relatively old workforce.
Post-school education is commonly required in this industry, and there has been a strong rise in the number of people studying Health. In 2017, there were 216,000 university enrolments in Health (almost doubling over the past decade) and 221,000 in the Vocational Educational and Training sector.
Health Care and Social Assistance is projected to have the strongest employment growth of any industry over the five years to May 2023, supported by the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Australia’s ageing and growing population.
Sources: ABS, Labour Force (trend and annual averages of original data); ABS, Education and Work; Department of Jobs and Small Business, Industry Employment Projections; Department of Education and Training, Higher Education Statistics; NCVER, Total VET Students and Courses