The line illustrates the proportion of the workforce in Australia in five different sectors from 1962 to 2012.
Overall, an upward trend was witnessed in the percentages of people working in services, while the opposite was true for that of manufacturing and agriculture. In addition, the figures for mining and construction remained unchanged. Notably, services were the most common among five industries.
In 1962, more than half of the workforce in Australia was engaged in services, making it the largest sector, followed by about 25% of manufacturing and roughly 12% of agriculture. From this year onward, the proportion of workforce in services increased significantly to its peak of around 80% in 2012, remaining the dominant industry. Meanwhile, there was a gradual decrease in these figures for employers in manufacturing, dropping to about 10% and in agriculture, which fell to 5% in the last year.
Turning to the remaining sectors, the proportion of construction workers stood at nearly 10% in 1962, where it stabilised until the last year. Similarly, the figure for mining was only 2% in the first year, which then remained almost unchanged at this point until 2012.