The following Fact Sheet provides a summary of employment in key Tasmanian agricultural industries based on 2016 ABS census data.
Employment in the Tasmanian Agricultural sector Fact Sheet (565Kb)
Obtaining reliable employment data in the Tasmanian agricultural sector can be challenging. Informal hiring practices, contract employment, outsourcing of work, and seasonal patterns complicate attempts to precisely define the employment status of agricultural industries and forecast labour needs.
Differences in sampling methodology also contribute to variation in employment data between surveys. In addition, the fact that many Tasmanian farms are diversified presents further challenges when seeking to evaluate employment trends in specific industries, since it is difficult to separate the labour inputs for each individual enterprise on a farm.
The
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Population Census offers the most reliable record of employment in the agricultural sector, providing data on region and industry of employment for the entire population. Using this data, it is possible to identify broad trends in employment in the Tasmanian agricultural sector.
The
Employment in the Tasmanian Agricultural Sector Fact Sheet uses ABS census data from 2016 to summarise agricultural employment, noting significant changes since the previous ABS census in 2011.
A previous fact sheet, based on the 2011 ABS census is also available: