Band 9: The chart below give the number of people employed in five types of work in a certain region in Australia in 2001 and 2008. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.

The bar chart illustrates how many people were employed in five different sectors in a particular Australian region in 2001 and 2008.

Overall, there was a slight rise in the numbers of employees in sales, computing and nursing, whereas a minor decrease was witnessed in the fields of accounting and farming. Furthermore, the sales sector employed the most people, while farming employed the least in both years.

In 2001, nearly 160,000 people were employed in sales, significantly outnumbering the other fields listed in the chart. Accounting, computing, and nursing each employed around 60,000 employees, while the agricultural sector had the smallest workforce, with over 20,000 workers.

By 2008, employment in sales had risen slightly to just over 160,000, still leading as the most populous sector. Computing and nursing followed similar upward trends, growing to nearly 80,000 and 60,000, respectively. In contrast, declines were seen in the accounting and farming workforces, with the former falling slightly to just under 60,000 and the latter to just below 20,000.