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Jobs and Skills Australia’s (JSA) employment projections are useful for understanding the impact of the current economic and labour market outlook on Australia’s future workforce needs. The projections give insights into trends and growth areas in the labour market and are used by industry and governments to inform policy decisions and workforce planning activities.
JSA has commissioned Victoria University to produce employment projections to May 2035, using the Victoria University Employment Forecasting (VUEF) model.
Key findings
Total employment in Australia is projected to grow by 961,000 people (or 6.5%) over the next 5 years, and by nearly 2.0 million people (or 13.3%) over the next 10 years, reaching 16.6 million employed people by May 2035. This growth rate is in line with the projected growth of the population.
Within this overall picture, there are areas of strengths and weakness. Further detail can be found by looking at different components of the projections.
How to use these projections
The ten-year employment projections have been calibrated to the demographic, macroeconomic and labour market outlook provided by the Australian Treasury and are available by industry, occupation and state/territory.
Like any model, these JSA projections are based on assumptions and contain a degree of inherent uncertainty. They should be used as indicative of the future trends based on our current knowledge, rather than a precise prediction of the future. Those projections are not forecasts as they are based on the existing past trends and underlying assumptions as mentioned above, not specific future-oriented factors.
The starting estimate of employment is based on JSA’s Labour Force Trend data for May 2025. While this JSA trending process reduces some of the imprecision and volatility, it is important to recognise that it cannot completely address these factors, particularly for smaller industries and occupations (which may be subject to high volatility in underlying data), those with strong seasonal patterns, or those where there are high rates of multiple jobholding. In these cases, it is more useful to focus on the relative rates of employment growth, as a guide for projected change, rather than focusing too strictly on the estimated level of employment.
More information on latest trends and methodology is here: Labour Force Trending.
These projections are based on existing trends that are being observed in the economy. They do not currently reflect the labour market implications of the adoption of generative AI and other emerging technologies. Information on these early and emerging labour market implications of generative AI can be found in the recent JSA study, in Our Gen AI Transition.
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Employment Projections - May 2025 to May 2035.xlsx
employment_projections_-_may_2025_to_may_2035.xlsx275457
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