Personal Services
Overview
This page provides high level information and data on the Personal Services industry which comprises four main industry sectors:
- Beauty
- Floristry
- Funeral Services
- Hairdressing.
The Personal Services industry includes a diverse range of businesses, from large companies to sole traders, providing individual services to customers across Australia.
Nationally recognised training for Personal Services is delivered under the SFL – Floristry Training Package, SHB – Hairdressing and Beauty Services Training Package and SIF – Funeral Services Training Package.
Information sourced from the Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast.
All data sources are available at the end of the page.
IRC and Skills Forecasts
Industry cluster snapshot
Employment and training snapshot
Due to the diverse nature of this industry, overall employment information is not available. See sector pages for employment level information.
Program enrolments in the training packages that make up the Personal Services industry (see notes for full list of training packages included) were at their highest in 2015 at approximately 67,590 and have since fallen to roughly 47,020 in 2018. Program completions also fell between 2015 and 2018, from more than 17,320 to around 15,050. Subject-only enrolments in this industry peaked in 2016 at around 5,690, then fell close to 4,920 in 2017 but have increased in 2018 to approximately 5,520.
Industry insights
Industry insights on skills needs
Job vacancy data suggests the top five occupations in demand across the Personal Services industry are:
- Hairdresser
- Florist
- Make Up Artist
- Funeral Worker (nec)
- Models.
According to job vacancy data the top employers across the Personal Services industry are primarily hairdressing focused, and include Just Cuts Incorporated, Hairhouse Warehouse and Toni Guy.
The Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast acknowledged that although technical skills are imperative, the following soft skills have been highlighted as priority skills for the industry:
- Teamwork and communication
- Emotional intelligence
- Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility
- Self-management
- Creativity.
In addition, the top ranked generic skills for the industry according to the Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast, were:
- Customer service / Marketing
- Communication / Collaboration including virtual collaboration / Social intelligence
- Design mindset / Thinking critically / System thinking / Solving problems
- Learning agility / Information literacy / Intellectual autonomy and self-management
- Language, Literacy and Numeracy (LLN).
The Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast identifies three factors which are currently challenging the industry. These are skills shortages, attraction and retention, and government policy / legislation changes.
A lack of skills and knowledge among industry graduates has been highlighted by employers, with the uptake of short, condensed and/or non accredited training, as well inadequate training materials identified as contributing to the lack of skills. In addition, many students are unable to gain real world work experience due to a lack of quality work placements and opportunities to gain practical experience, therefore meaning these students miss opportunities to develop both ‘soft skills’ and fundamental technical skills.
The challenge of attracting skilled workers has been in part attributed to key influencers such teachers, school career advisors and parents not valuing personal services occupations as viable career pathways, therefore dissuading young people from choosing a career within the Personal Services industry. Retention issues have been highlighted with regards to hairdressing apprenticeships where attrition rates are high and steadily increasing. Increased competition from home-based salons has been identified as draining the supply of skilled workers, while a suggestion has been made to encourage more engagement between apprentices and industry outside of mandatory work requirements to try and combat high attrition rates.
Inconsistent policies and legislation across jurisdictions mean that overall there is a lack of appropriate regulation in the hairdressing and beauty sector according to the Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast. In many states, local councils are now responsible for determining if these businesses are meeting health regulations, as separate state-based shop registration procedures have now ceased. The industry strongly believes that licencing needs to return or be reintroduced for hairdressing and beauty services, especially in relation to the use of intense pulsed light (IPL), laser equipment and cosmetic tattooing.
For detailed analysis of skills needs, see the respective sector pages.
Links and resources
Industry associations and advisory bodies
Aesthetics Practitioners Advisory Network
Australian Association of Floral Designers
Australian Funeral Directors Association
Australian Hairdressing Council
Australian Institute of Embalming
Hair and Beauty Industry Association
Independent Funeral Directors Association of Australia
National Funeral Directors Association of Australia
Retail and Personal Services Skills Advisory Council
Employee associations
Data sources and notes
Training data has been extracted from the National VET Provider Collection, Total VET Student and Courses from the following training packages or qualifications:
- SFL Floristry Training Package, SHB Hairdressing and Beauty Services Training Package, and SIF Funeral Services Training Package and all superseded Training Packages.
Priority skills data has been extracted from the Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast. Each IRC has prioritised and ranked the generic skills.
Job vacancy data have been extracted from Burning Glass Technologies 2019, Labor Insight Real-time Labor Market Information Tool, Burning Glass Technologies, Boston, viewed July 2019, https://www.burning-glass.com.
Data shown represent most requested occupations and employers according to internet job postings in Australia between July 2016 and June 2019 filtered by ANZSIC and ANZSCO classification levels listed below.
- Occupations
- 9511 Hairdressing and Beauty Services
- 4274 Flower Retaining
- 9520 Funeral, Crematorium and Cemetery Services.