Automotive now a dead-end job, says report

AUSTRALIA’S automotive sector is now ranked one of the fastest shrinking parts of the national workforce, a report from research group IBISWorld has identified.

Car industry workers have been singled out alongside video shop assistants, newspaper publishing and book retailing, and computer and software retailing as sectors of the economy that will shed the most employees over the next five years.

The report says that while video hire shops are expected to shed almost 40 percent of their workforce a year as the industry moves online, the automotive sector was keyed up to shed the equivalent of a quarter of its workforce each year over the next five years as one of a number of sectors “becoming increasingly obsolete”.

“Over the next five years, the automotive industry is expected to continue its downward spiral,” IBISWorld Australia general manager Dan Ruthven said in the report titled IBISWorld forecasts which jobs will sink and soar over 2014 – and beyond.

“The impending exits of Toyota, GM Holden and Ford from local motor vehicle manufacturing operations is expected to decimate employment within that industry at an annualised 25 percent,” Mr Ruthven said.

“Demand for motor vehicle parts and accessories will also dry up, pushing employment within that industry down by an annualised 25.4 percent over the five years to 2018-19”.

Instead, the report suggests that displaced Ford, Holden and Toyota workers should move into high-demand fields such as gas and oil exploration, where employment is expected to grow at a rate of more than 11 percent, online shopping which will grow at almost eight percent, mining support services (7.3 percent), preschool education (6.8 percent) and aged-care accommodation services (5.6 percent).

Other fast-moving industries mentioned in the report include online education, diagnostic imaging services, art and non-vocational education, computer system design services and courier pick-up and delivery services.