The LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise in 2021 report has revealed the 15 top jobs on the rise in 2021, with health and care-taker jobs dominating the list.
The top industries were mental health specialists, healthcare and the medical profession, and social work. This includes jobs such as registered nurse, mental health practitioner and social services specialist.
LinkedIn’s Careers Expert, Shiva Kumar, notes that healthcare jobs will remain in high demand post-pandemic.
“While it’s true that many healthcare roles are in higher demand due to the pandemic, we expect that many of the care-based roles in social work and medical support will need to continue even after Australia becomes vaccinated, as the country will still need their help to rebuild,” said Mr Kumar.
However industries such as media and communications, arts, services and sales face an increasingly competitive jobs market.
“Heavily impacted industries from the pandemic such as media and communications, education and sales have experienced a decreasing supply of jobs meaning that competition has increased,” said Mr Kumar.
“Meanwhile, jobs in project management, healthcare and finance have been integral to many companies getting back on track during the pandemic, so demand for workers in these areas has increased and job competition isn’t as strong in these areas.”
Opportunities for career progression will also vary between industries in 2021.
COVID-19 slowed the career progression in many industries and more than a quarter of Australians believe that opportunities for promotion will decrease in 2021.
Professionals in HR, finance, operations and media were the least confident about getting promoted. In contrast, professionals in administration and business development were the most confident.
This has prompted a number of people to switch careers in 2020.
“Many professionals are reconsidering career paths as a result and pivoting to find better job security and career progression opportunities.”
The pandemic also spurred on a demand for transferable skills.
There has been a particular emphasis on soft skills as formal educational backgrounds become less relevant to an employee’s chosen career pathway.
“LinkedIn Learning data revealed that 6 out of the 10 most popular courses on the platform were soft skills, such as Strategic Thinking, Remote Work Foundations, Time Management and Developing Emotional Intelligence,” said Mr Kumar.
“It shows that Aussies have been keen to learn those soft, transferable skills that can apply to a wide range of roles and industries.”
Nevertheless, confidence among Australian workers is at an all-time high since April 2020.
In April 2020, jobseekers rated their confidence in the jobs market at +12 (on a scale of -100 to +100). In January 2021, jobseekers gave the Australian jobs market a score of +29, more than double the level of confidence in April 2020.
People surveyed were most confident in their ability to find a job (+38) however least confident about their finances (+24).
Full list of top 15 jobs in 2021
The top 15 jobs are:
- Mental health specialist
- Healthcare/Medical frontline
- Social worker
- Healthcare/Medical support
- Construction workers
- Customer service
- Professional and personal coaches
- Real estate
- Ecommerce
- Digital content freelancers
- Education roles
- Finance
- Social media/Digital marketing
- Specialised engineering roles
- Cyber security roles
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