A comprehensive assessment of the long term employment trends, impact of COVID-19 and employment growth prospects in the Health Care and Social Assistance Industry.

By Samuel Rapeport and Arvind Ravindran

Samuel and Arvind developed a comprehensive special topic report on the Health Care and Social Assistance industry while participating in the 2021 DESE graduate program with the NSC's Occupation and Industry Analysis section. They would like to acknowledge the assistance and guidance provided by Rhys O’Neill and thank him for his time and contribution in enabling them to undertake the analysis.

The opinions expressed in the staff-authored blog are those of the author/s and do not necessarily represent the position or policy of the National Skills Commission or the Australian Government.

The Health Care and Social Assistance Industry Analysis Special Topic Report, now available here, provides a comprehensive assessment of the long term employment trends, impact of COVID-19 and employment growth prospects in the Health Care and Social Assistance Industry. This blog post highlights parts of the analysis that explore current demand within the industry by occupation and how this is likely to facilitate strong projected growth for Health Care and Social Assistance employment over the five years to November 2025.

Analysing the Health Care and Social Assistance industry through an occupational lens provides valuable insight into the range of skills and experience required within the industry as well as allowing the linking of up-to-date recruitment activity data.¹

Figure 1 shows the composition of the Health Care and Social Assistance industry by 4-digit occupational groups. As is demonstrated, over half (51.1%) of Health Care and Social Assistance industry employment is concentrated in the eight largest employing occupations within the industry. The largest employing occupations within the Health Care and Social Assistance industry are Registered Nurses (comprising 16.2% of industry employment or 286,000 persons), followed by Aged and Disabled Carers (11.9% or 210,200), Receptionists (5.3% or 93,100), Nursing Support and Personal Care Workers (4.9% or 86,200), Child Carers (4.9% or 85,600), General Practitioners and Resident Medical Officers (3.8% or 66,500), Welfare Support Workers (2.2% or 39,300) and General Clerks (1.9% or 33,800).

Figure 1: Health Care and Social Assistance industry largest employing occupations

When thinking of the Health Care and Social Assistance industry, highly skilled occupations such as specialty doctors and nurses may come to mind, and indeed the largest employing occupation in the industry, Registered Nurses, is a Skill Level 1 occupation. However, as demonstrated by Figure 2, employment within the industry is diverse with regards to skill level requirements. Over a third (33.7%) of total industry employment is concentrated in lower skill level (Skill Levels 4 and 5) occupations. Further, three of the five largest employing occupations in the industry (Aged and Disabled Carers, Receptionists, and Nursing Support and Personal Care Workers) require education/experience commensurate with Skill Level 4.

Figure 2: Health Care and Social Assistance industry composition by Skill Level

Job vacancies provide useful and timely data which can be used to approximate labour demand. The National Skills Commission’s (NSC) Internet Vacancy Index (IVI) is the only publicly available source of detailed data on online vacancies. The recruitment activity data captured by the IVI will be used as a proxy for labour demand in this section ². In total there were 31,600 job advertisements for the eight largest employing occupations of the Health Care and Social Assistance industry during September 2021, representing 13.8% of total recruitment activity nationally.

Growth in job advertisements have been observed across all of the eight largest employed 4-digit occupations within the Health Care and Social Assistance Industry compared with pre-COVID-19 levels (Table 1). The strongest gains have been for Nursing Support and Personal Care Workers (up by 98.0% or 620 job advertisements), followed by Registered Nurses (72.6% or 3,100 job advertisements), General Practitioners and Resident Medical Officers (62.5% or 680 job advertisements), Welfare Support Workers (39.2% or 380 job advertisements) and Aged and Disabled Carers (55.9% or 1,200 job advertisements).

Table 1: Internet Vacancy Index (IVI) results September 2021 – largest employing occupations of the Health Care and Social Assistance industry

Notes: *Pre-COVID-19 job advertisement levels are defined as the 12-month average in the seasonally adjusted IVI series to February 2020 (see Vacancy Report for details).Source: National skills Commission, Internet Vacancy Index (IVI), September 2021, seasonally adjusted. **Seasonally adjusted IVI data at the 4-didgit occupation by state level of detail are not published publicly. 

In total, the rate of growth in job advertisements across the eight largest employing Health Care and Social Assistance industry occupations compared with pre-COVID-19 levels (up by 51.5%) is greater than that observed across all occupations (36.2%). This may represent increasing employment opportunities within the Health Care and Social Assistance industry.

The NSC’s Skills Priority List (SPL), published in June 2021, provides a measure of occupational shortages ³. SPL findings show that these large employing Health Care and Social Assistance occupations are slightly less likely to be experiencing shortages compared to all occupations. Of the 35 occupations (at the six-digit level) that make up the 8 largest employing Health Care and Social Assistance industry occupations (at the four-digit level), 17.1% are in ‘Shortage’, compared to 19.1%, on average, across all occupations ⁴. Consequentially the high level of recruitment activity for this occupational group is more likely than average to be met in the short term, which may facilitate the strong growth that is projected for the industry over the next five years, as discussed in the ‘projected future employment’ section below. 

An important aspect to consider in the context of labour demand is the ability for employers to connect with job seekers. The NSC surveys employers to learn about their recruitment needs and to better connect job seekers with employment opportunities. In line with the IVI trends, the NSC’s Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey (REOS) results have shown that employers in the Health Care and Social Assistance industry are often recruiting, and frequently expect to increase staff numbers. Latest available data from the Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey shows that 60% of employers in the Health Care and Social Assistance industry were either recruiting at the time of the survey or had recruited in the past month, compared to 38% of employers across all industries in September 2021 ⁵. In addition, 23% of employers in the Health Care and Social industry were expecting to increase staff numbers over the next three months, the same as the rate for all industries.

Figure 3 shows the 50 skills most sought after in recruitment for the 8 largest employing Health Care and Social Assistance industry occupations over the 12 months to August 2021. Skills such as ‘Communication Skills’ were important across both all occupations and the top employing Health Care and Social Assistance industry occupations, being sought after in 30.5% and 28.8% of job advertisements respectively. However, a number of other skills sought after by employers for the Health Care and Social assistance occupations differ to those sought after across all occupations. For instance:

• Administrative Support (with 13.6% of largest employing Health Care and Social Assistance industry occupations recruiting for this skill compared with 3.5% across all occupations)
• Midwifery (10.4% and 1.4% of job advertisements respectively)
• First Aid (10.2% and 3.0% of job advertisements respectively)
• Working With Mental Health (10.1% and 3.0% of job advertisements respectively)
• Computer Literacy (9.2% and 4.5% of job advertisements respectively)

Figure 3: Most sought after skills in recruitment for Health Care and Social Assistance industry largest employing occupations

While IVI data can be used as an indicator of current demand, the NSC’s employment projections provide insight to the future direction of the labour market.

Employment is projected to increase in 17 of the 19 broad industries over the five years to November 2025 according to the latest projections. Notably, the Health Care and Social Assistance industry is projected to make the largest contribution to employment growth over the period (increasing by 249,500 persons or 14.2%) (Figure 4).

This projected growth is supported by continued investment in public health care at the state and federal levels along with ongoing demand generated by the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Increasing demand for childcare and Australia’s ageing population also contribute to this strong projected growth, with employment in this industry, as discussed, having been relatively resilient to the impacts of COVID-19.

Figure 4: Top five largest projected employment growth industries – five years to November 2025

Read more industry insights in the full The Health Care and Social Assistance Industry Analysis Special Topic Report, now available on the Labour Market Information Portal (read the report in full here).