If you entered Australia’s workforce over the past two decades, there’s a good chance you ended up in the public service.

In percentage terms, job growth in sectors traditionally dominated by the public-sector have far outpaced those more aligned with the private sector since the late 1990s.

This chart from UBS tells the story.

Consistently stronger, particularly in the years following the global financial crisis.

A surge in healthcare jobs, now the largest employer in the country, goes someway to explaining the gap between the two groups.

“Growth in publicly-dominated sectors slowed over recent months, although not in health, albeit the year-on-year pace of around 3.25% remains twice that for private sector jobs growth,” says UBS.

In the three months to May, the bank says employment in healthcare jumped by 47,000 while that in the education sector grew by a smaller 11,000.

From a year earlier that represented increases of 2.1% and 4.5% respectively, higher than the 1.5% lift recorded in those sectors more aligned to the private sector excluding mining workers.

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