##a on the supply side, many people want to work part time. indeed, in many workplaces, employees have long been asking for greater flexibility, including the ability to work fewer hours. part - time work leaves time for other activities, including education, caring for others and leisure. some insight into why people work part time can be gained from the hilda survey, which asks people for the main reason that they work part time ( graph 3 ). the most common response is that they are studying. other frequent responses are that they are caring for children or that they simply prefer parttime work. for many people, part - time work is what they want. the fact that we have been able to accommodate this desire is a positive feature of our labour market. graph 3 there are demand factors at work as well. many businesses benefit from having employees who work part time. but there is an element to the demand side that is not so positive. some people are working part - time because they can't find a full - time job and others are working part - time because of job requirements. while most part - time workers are not seeking full - time employment, around one - quarter want to work more hours than they currently do. on average, they are looking to work an additional 14 hours per week, although many are not taking active steps to secure those additional hours. https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2017 / sp - gov - 2017 - 07 - 26. html 4 / 13 7 / 26 / 2017 the labour market and monetary policy | speeches | rba so many people want to work part time, but some of these would like more hours than they currently have. this represents an additional source of unused capacity in our labour market that is not reflected in the unemployment rate. given this, as part - time employment has grown, the rba has paid additional attention to alternative measures of labour market slack. one measure that has conceptual appeal is an hours - based underutilisation rate, which measures the additional hours sought by workers ( including those currently unemployed ) relative to the total number of hours that workers would like to work. this measure shows the same general pattern as the unemployment rate, although the gap has tended to widen gradually over time ( graph 4 ). graph 4 now turning to the second longer - term trend shift we have seen in our labour market – the shift to employment in the services sector ( graph 5 ). https : / /

www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2017 / sp - gov - 2017 - 07 - 26. html 5 / 13 7 / 26 / 2017 the labour market and monetary policy | speeches | rba graph 5 today, almost 80 per cent of australians work in service industries, broadly defined. by way of contrast, in the 1950s only around 50 per cent of employed australians worked in the services sector. in the past, it was common to have a full - time job producing goods. in our more modern economy, this is no longer the case. in an effort to better understand the growth in services - sector employment, one of the exercises that we have done at the rba is to classify around 300 individual service - sector occupations into jobs that pay hourly wages that are below average, around average and above average. [ 3 ] we have then tracked employment growth for each of these three groups since 2000 ( graph 6 ). https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2017 / sp - gov - 2017 - 07 - 26. html 6 / 13 7 / 26 / 2017 the labour market and monetary policy | speeches | rba graph 6 the picture is pretty clear. the growth in service - sector employment has been strongest in those occupations with above - average rates of pay. since 2000, over a million new higher - paying jobs have been created in the services sector. some of the occupations where there have been large gains in employment are : medical professionals, it managers, project administrators and sales managers. there has also been strong employment growth in occupations with lower rates of pay. we have also conducted the same analysis for the business services and household services sectors separately ( graph 7 ). the growth of higher - paying jobs has been much more pronounced in business services, than it has been in household services. for the household services sector, the growth has been strongest in jobs with below - average wages. some of the occupations where there has been a big increase in employment here include : baristas and waiters, childcare workers and aged - care workers. so it's a mixed picture. https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2017 / sp - gov - 2017 - 07 - 26. html 7 / 13 7 / 26 / 2017 the labour market and monetary policy | speeches | rba graph 7 i am often asked where future jobs growth will come from. the short answer is that it will come mainly from where