Community services workforce

Overview of community services

Community services include activities such as: personal and social support; child care; training and employment; financial and placement; corrective services; other direct community service activities; and policy, community and service development and support.

Services are provided to the community by employees and volunteers, either as individuals or connected with a variety of businesses and charitable organisations, which operate across a wide range of industries.

Some of these services are provided directly - that is, to individuals or families on a face-to-face basis or on their behalf. Other services are provided indirectly. These include administrative support, book-keeping, policy, research, and fund-raising.

Growth in community services workforce

The 2006 Population Census shows 294,231 people employed in community service occupations in Australia, an increase of 35.6% over the number in 2001. Of the broad occupational groups, the largest was child and youth services workers, with 118,036 employees, followed by aged or disabled care (81,130). The fastest growing broad category between 2001 and 2006 was other community services, up 77.5%. This category included teachers of English to speakers of other languages for the first time in 2006. There were 5,923 of them in 2006.

Source: ABS, Census of Population and Housing, 2001 and 2006 (data available from ABS on request).

Females entering the workforce

The community services labour force typically has a large proportion of female participation.

• In the community services workforce in 2006, females made up 87.1% of the workforce, a slight increase from 86.6% in 2001.
• The occupations that had the highest proportion of females included Preschool aides (99.2%), Family day care workers (98.6%) and Early childhood teachers (98.3%).

Age profile

The average age of people employed in community services occupations in 2006 was 41 years. This was slightly higher than the average age of people employed outside the community services workforce, which was 39 years.

In the community services workforce in 2006, the highest proportion of community services workers was aged 45 to 54 years in 2006, after a shift from 2001 when the highest proportion was the 35 to 44 age group.

Part-time employment

The female work pattern of working fewer hours per week than males was evident in the 2006 census data which showed at least half of employed females (56.2%) worked less than 35 hours per week, compared with just over one-third of males working in community services (39.9%). The 2001 census presented a similar pattern with 54.5% females employed part time in community services compared to 35.1% for males.

The average week for community services workers in 2006 was 31 hours.

Geographic distribution

Community services workers were more evenly spread across the Remoteness Areas than health workers. The highest number of workers per 100,000 was in Very remote Australia (1,696), followed by Inner regional Australia (1,541). The figures for the other RAs were Outer regional, 1,443, Remote, 1,407 and Major cities, the lowest, 1,379 workers per 100,000 population.

Differences in the number of workers per 100,000 were evident between areas at the occupation level. The figures for other community services workers and family services workers were highest in Very remote Australia (605 and 101 workers respectively). The number of these workers in Major cities were the lowest, with 154 other community services workers and 65 family services workers per 100,000 population respectively.

Source: ABS, Census of Population and Housing, 2006 (data available from ABS on request).

Publications

A key source of information on community services occupations is the five-yearly national census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Information based on this source is published in the AIHW publication Health and community services labour force 2001 and Health and community services labour force 2006.

Further information on the community services labour force can also be found in Chapter 8 of  Australia's Welfare 2007.