The Health Care and Social Assistance industry is the largest employing industry in Australia. In 2018 there were close to 1.7 million people were employed in this industry, which is projected to increase to over 1.9 million by 2023. Community Services related industry sectors and occupations form one part of the overall Healthcare and Social Assistance industry.
Child Care Services (one of the industry sectors within the broader Healthcare and Social Assistance industry) and Pre-school Education are both industry areas where the employment has increased substantially since 2000 and are projected to increase further up until 2023.
The Community Sector Training Package was the second largest training package (after Business Services) in 2017 in terms of enrolment numbers. There were approximately 335,000 enrolments in 2017, which is about 32,000 fewer enrolments than in 2016.
The number of program completions fell from about 126,000 in 2014, to 90,000 in 2017.
It is also interesting to note the large number of subject only enrolments (about 48,000 in 2017). In 2017 the units of competency with the largest numbers of subject only enrolments were:
- Recognise and respond appropriately to domestic and family violence (6,000 enrolments)
- Provide support to people living with dementia (5,100 enrolments)
- Identify and respond to children and young people at risk (3,700 enrolments)
- Support independence and wellbeing (3,000 enrolments).
SkillsIQ is conducting a project to assist understanding of the implications of consumer-directed care reforms across Health and Community Services sectors such as disability, aged care, mental health and primary care. These reforms have implications for skills across the different sectors of the Community Services workforce.
Skills clusters that were ranked of highest priority by industries in South Australia’s Health Care and Social assistance sector were Administration and support, Managerial and leadership, and Sales and customer service. As reported in the Health Care & Social Assistance Sector Profile this is consistent with the move to greater consumer choice in this industry as a result of reforms.