2016 Census: Tasmania

	MEDIA RELEASE
23 October 2017		139/2017

Tasmanians are among the least likely of Australians to have moved home, according to latest insights from the 2016 Census of Population and Housing.

Almost two-thirds of residents had been at the same address for the five years leading up to Census, the highest proportion in the country.

Census Program Manager Bindi Kindermann said the latest Census data contained information on a state-wide scale as well as for local communities.

“From how people get to work, to what they are studying, what their jobs are and where people are moving to, this Census information tells us so much about the lives of Tasmanians,” Ms Kindermann said.

“Not only can we see that Tasmanians are the least likely to have moved from 2011 to 2016 but more than 85 per cent of people had been living at the same address for the 12 months leading up to Census night, only fractionally behind South Australia.”

In the 12 months leading up to Census night, 15,000 people moved to Tasmania from interstate and overseas, and of these, 4,000 were from overseas.

The data also shows that 76 per cent of people in Hobart drove to work, 5 per cent caught public transport – the lowest proportion of any capital city in the country – while 8 per cent walked or rode, slightly less than Canberra.

Ms Kindermann said state-wide, Tasmania had a unique commuting pattern when compared among states and territories.

“While the car was the most common way for Tasmanians to travel to work, consistent with the rest of the country, Tasmania was the only one to feature the truck in the top four methods for travelling to work, which was used by 1,700 people. The truck was also third in 2011, however, the number of people was higher at 2,000.”

The top three fields of study remained the same as in the 2011 Census: almost 34,000 had studied Engineering and Related Technologies and only slightly fewer had studied Management and Commerce.

Almost 28,000 had studied the third most popular field, Society and Culture, which was also the fastest growing, with the number of students increasing by 25 per cent since 2011.

The largest industry by employment in Tasmania, as well as nationally, was also the fastest growing employer, Health Care and Social Assistance. This covers areas such as aged and child care and the health sector and grew in numbers by 18 per cent, from 26,000 in 2011 to 31,000 in 2016.

Retail Trade was the second largest employer, although the number of employees fell by approximately 1,000 to 23,600 while Education and Training grew from 19,500 to 20,100 to rise from fourth to the third largest employing industry.

The Public Administration and Safety industry shed 13 per cent of its workforce to 17,000 workers – moving from third to fourth largest – while consistent with national trends manufacturing reduced in size by 22 per cent to drop out of the top five and be replaced by Accommodation and Food Services.

Census data is available free online. Use one of our easy tools such as QuickStats or Community Profiles to access the latest data for your area or topic of interest.

For more information on Tasmania in the 2016 Census, follow the link to the Tasmania QuickStats page.

Information on Hobart can be found via the following link to the Hobart QuickStats page.


TASMANIA


Labour force

		2016	2011
Labour force population		232,950	232,124
Employed persons1		216,583	217,299
	Full time	121,822	126,465
	Part time	81,601	76,384
Not in labour force (15 years and over)		160,050	151,380
	18-64 year olds	68,848	71,907

1 – Includes “Employed, away from work”

Note: The Census and Labour Force Survey both collect labour market information however are designed for different purposes and utilise different collection methods.
Differences in the collections mean they are not directly comparable to each other, they are complementary data.


Industry

		2016		2011
Top 5 industries (total employed persons)	1.	Health Care and Social Assistance	30,683	Health Care and Social Assistance	26,032
	2.	Retail Trade	23,595	Retail Trade	24,544
	3.	Education and Training	20,105	Public Administration and Safety	19,594
	4.	Public Administration and Safety	16,958	Education and Training	19,459
	5.	Accommodation and Food Services	16,543	Manufacturing	18,968
Top 3 industries (growth rate, 2011 to 2016)	1.	Health Care and Social Assistance 17.9%
	2.	Arts and Recreation Services 12.7%
	3.	Administrative and Support Services 10.9%

Occupations

		2016		2011
Top 3 occupations (total employed persons)	1.	Professionals	40,772	Professionals	40,145
	2.	Technicians and Trades Workers	30,243	Technicians and Trades Workers	32,254
	3.	Clerical and Administrative Workers	28,194	Clerical and Administrative Workers	30,054
Top 3 occupations (growth rate, 2011 to 2016)	1.	Community and Personal Service Workers 10.5%
	2.	Labourers 2.2%
	3.	Professionals 1.6%

Method of Travel to Work

		2016	2011
Car (as driver or passenger)		153,939	151,936
Top 3 other methods	1.	Walked only 10,443	Walked only 10,849
	2.	Bus 5,226	Bus 5,507
	3.	Truck 1,695	Truck 2,039

* Single method of travel only


Education

		2016		2011
Top 3 fields of study (total population)	1.	Engineering and Related Technologies	33,894	Engineering and Related Technologies	32,642
	2.	Management and Commerce	33,750	Management and Commerce	29,478
	3.	Society and Culture	27,837	Society and Culture	22,249
Top 3 fields of study (18-30 year olds)	1.	Management and Commerce	6,503	Management and Commerce	7,094
	2.	Society and Culture	5,278	Engineering and Related Technologies	4,821
	3.	Engineering and Related Technologies	4,843	Society and Culture	4,395
Top 3 fields of study (growth rate, 2011 to 2016)	1.	Society and Culture 25.1%
	2.	Health 17.2%
	3.	Creative Arts 16.9%

Migration

	1 year ago	5 years ago
Current residents who lived interstate	11,013	29,063
Current residents who lived overseas	3,992	12,229

Notes

* All data based on Place of Usual Residence