The chart illustrates the proportion of Australia’s workforce engaged in six industries: manufacturing, retail, health care, construction, education and tourism from 1989 to 2009.
Overall, many people worked in health care, construction, education, and tourism over the period, while the opposite was true for the remaining sites. In addition, tourism had the lowest number of employees working over the ten-year period.
Looking first at health care, it started at 9.6% of the workforce in 1989, before rising considerably to 11.3% in 2009, making it become the most popular industry at the time. Then, 7.6% and 6.8% of employees worked in construction and education, respectively, with a gradual increase of 0.7% for both figures in 2009. The percentage of the workforce employed in tourism was the lowest over the period, increasing from 5.5% in 1989 to 7.3% in 2009.
Turning to the remaining categories, manufacturing accounted for the highest proportion of employment at 15% in 1989, this figure dropped significantly to 9.8% in 2009. Similarly, the retail sector saw a decline from 11.8% to 10.1% over the same period.