SPOTLIGHT: CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Construction was the fifth largest employing industry in Australia with 1.1 million filled jobs in 2016-17, representing 7.9 per cent of all jobs. In 2010-11, 6,000 fewer jobs made the industry the third largest employing industry, accounting for 8.5 per cent of all jobs at that time. Jobs are distinct from employed persons, who may hold multiple jobs.
Graph 1: Filled jobs
Source: Labour Account Australia, Quarterly Experimental Estimates (cat: 6150.0.55.003)
Filled Construction jobs grew by 0.6 per cent from 2010-11 to 2016-17, while jobs across all industries grew by 8.6 per cent. This mirrors the industry’s share of the economy, which also stopped growing at the beginning of the decade.
In addition to providing information for the Construction industry, the Labour Account also now provides insights into the three subdivisions within it: Building construction, Heavy and civil construction and Construction services. Construction services accounted for 67.8 per cent of the industry’s jobs in 2016-17. Many construction related ‘trades’ fall into this category. This was followed by Building construction at 21.0 per cent, and Heavy and civil engineering construction at 11.1 per cent.
Secondary jobs refer to jobs worked by people with multiple jobs, specifically the job(s) that they worked fewer hours in. In 2016-17, secondary jobs accounted for 3.9 per cent of all filled jobs in the Construction industry, representing around 4.9 per cent of all secondary jobs in Australia. While Construction services had the highest number of secondary jobs due to its large size, Heavy and civil engineering construction had the largest share of secondary jobs, peaking at 7.5 per cent in 2011-12 during the resources investment boom. The average across all industries in the economy was 6.3 per cent.
Graph 2: Secondary jobs as a share of filled jobs
Source: Labour Account Australia, Quarterly Experimental Estimates (cat: 6150.0.55.003)
Vacancies in Construction decreased by 45.1 per cent from 2011-12 to 2015-16, before recovering across all three subdivisions in 2016-17.
Graph 3: Job vacancies
Source: Labour Account Australia, Quarterly Experimental Estimates (cat: 6150.0.55.003)
The influence of the resources investment boom is evident in a 2012-13 spike in average weekly hours worked in Heavy and civil engineering construction.
Graph 4: Average weekly hours actually worked per employed person
Source: Labour Account Australia, Quarterly Experimental Estimates (cat: 6150.0.55.003)
This boom also influenced average hourly income in Heavy and civil engineering construction strongly, which peaked at $91.11 in 2011-12.
Graph 5: Average hourly income per employed person
Source: Labour Account Australia, Quarterly Experimental Estimates (cat: 6150.0.55.003)
As this spotlight has shown, the Australian Labour Account provides an overarching picture of the Australian labour market. Through bringing together a range of data, it is possible to produce highly coherent estimates of the number of jobs, people, hours worked and labour income in each industry.
Information on the Construction industry can be found in Table 6 (for quarterly information) and Table 27 (for annual information, including information for the three subdivisions).
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