The table illustrates the proportion of employers who worked in six different sections in Australia from 1989 to 2009.
Overall, there was a decrease in manufacturing and retail, while the opposite was true for the remaining industries. In addition, tourism remained the lowest percentages throughout the period.
Regarding the rising categories, manufacturing recorded the highest rate of employees in 1989, at 15%, after which it witnessed a dramatic decline to 9.8% in 2009. A similar pattern, but to a smaller extent, was seen in the figure for retail, which decreased from 11.8% to 10.1%.
Concerning the other sectors, 9.6% of workers worked in healthcare in 1989, which was 2% higher than that of construction. After that, these shares rose significantly to 11.3% and 8.3% in 2009. Similarly, the percentages of people in education and tourism accounted for 6.8% and 5.5%, followed by a marginal growth to 7.5% and 7.3%, respectively.
