doctor nurse health

It’s now clear that the strong jobs growth of 2017 is behind us — growth is still good, but well below that of last year. New data from the ABS shows why. Yesterday the ABS released its quarterly detailed labour force figures and they illustrate how big a role the health and social care and education sectors played in the strong jobs growth.

That growth was mainly in the May and August quarters; using the ABS’s trend numbers, 111,000 and 118,000 jobs were created, respectively. A further 95,000 were created in the November quarter as well — none too shabby either. For comparison, only 140,000 jobs were created in all four quarters up to February 2017. It was a dramatic acceleration in those three quarters last year. The February quarter this year showed a further deceleration, though, to 75,000; the May quarter (the latest one) saw 69,000. That’s still pretty good, but heading toward half of the strong growth last year.

That’s coincided with a significant fall-off in the health and social care and education sectors. Health and social care is the 800lb gorilla of Australian employment — at 1.68 million employees, it employs 13.4% of all working Australians, easily the biggest sector. Frequently, it’s the fastest growing as well, but not in 2016, when the sector was essentially flat for reasons that aren’t clear (and which might be more about the data than about actual hiring).

In late 2016-early 2017, it took off like a rocket, and in three quarters from December 2016, put on 36,000, 43,000 and 36,000 workers respectively. The November quarter wasn’t exactly bad either, at 18,000. Education has been a more consistent performer, with good growth in 2016, but it also grew strongly in 2017, with quarterly numbers of 11,000, 15,000, 17,000 and 11,000 starting from December 2016.

This year both have fallen sharply. Healthcare added just 1500 jobs in the February quarter and just over 2000 in May. E education lost just over 2000 jobs in February and lost 11,000 in May — which accounts for all of the fall from the February to May quarters in overall jobs growth.

Handily, manufacturing — a sector more traditionally associated with job losses — has put on around 20,000 jobs in both the February and May quarters, helping to cushion the fall of healthcare and education. That’s a good sign that the labour force isn’t totally reliant on government-dominated sectors. Ideally, there’ll be a permanent transition away from reliance on health and education as key jobs growth drivers.

That’d really be something for the government to boast about.