03 May 2011

Advantage SA will be hosting a tour of the South Australian Health and Wellbeing industries this Wednesday 4 May and Thursday 5 May.

A range of local and interstate reporters will join a select group of South Australian business people for an in-depth briefing on the industry that has newly been announced South Australia’s biggest employer.

Health Care and Social Assistance has surpassed the Manufacturing sector as South Australia’s largest employer, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports.

The ABS issue of SA Stats released recently reports Manufacturing recorded negative growth in annual average employment between 2000-01 and 2009-10.

Declining since 2006-07, Manufacturing had average annual employment of 83,700 persons in 2010 compared with 103,300 for Health Care and Social Assistance.

Other South Australian growth industries in terms of average annual employment were the Construction and the Professional, Scientific and Technical industries.

“From a production perspective Manufacturing still recorded the largest contribution to SA's economy over 2000-01 to 2009-10,” SA Stats reports. “However, its contribution to Gross State Product (GSP), in industry gross value added terms, fell from 15.0% to 11.7% over this period.

“To some degree, this decline was offset by the state's Construction industry which increased its contribution to GSP from 4.4% to 6.6%, and Health Care and Social Assistance up from 6.7% to a 7.4% share of GSP.”