The Melbourne suburbs where the most part-time workers live

Stark differences in employment trends exist throughout Melbourne, with enclaves of part-time workers on the coast contrasting with clusters of full-timers in the city.

Almost half of all workers who live in Parkville (48.6 per cent), Clayton (48 per cent) and Carlton (45 per cent) worked part-time, analysis of census data reveals.

Many neighbourhoods with the highest concentration of full-timers were clustered in inner-city suburbs like Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond. The tiny suburb of Cremorne is the Melbourne suburb with the lowest rate of part-timers (21.6 per cent).

RMIT urban economist Jago Dodson said there were various forces behind the employment trends.

He theorised the high concentration of part-timers in Parkville, Clayton, Carlton, Burwood (42.3 per cent) and Bundoora (40 per cent) is probably due to a large number of university students living on campuses in those locations.

“That would be my supposition: Where you get a high concentration of students in the workforce you get a higher proportion of part-time work,” Dodson said.

The inner-city suburbs more densely populated with full-time workers – Fitzroy, Richmond, Collingwood – were probably home to a higher proportion of white-collar workers and skilled migrants, he said.

“Once you get a reasonable distance outside that to Richmond, South Yarra, Prahran, Windsor – you’re getting less of a student population and younger [population], possibly a high proportion of skilled migrants and better-educated population, probably living in rental properties.”

What are the average full-time hours in your line of work? Type your job into the box below to find out. If you follow the prompts to our visual story you can also explore the average part-time hours for your line of work, its ratio of full-time and part-time workers, the average hours people work in your area, and more.

Robert Hall, chief economist at Informed Decisions, said the high cost of housing was also a factor and there were more households reliant on two full-time incomes.

“[There’s] sort of less kids within those particular areas and if you do [have kids], then you get very high incomes in that area,” he said.

This contrasted with outer suburbs full of young families and different industries.

“I think you see that come out pretty clearly in that northern corridor, in the growth areas around Mickleham, Wallan and Beveridge, that’s got higher childcare responsibilities,” said Hall.

“But it’s also the nature of the jobs, particularly in that area, a lot of healthcare jobs, a lot of retail and hospitality as well. So that sort of increases your part-time share, given those industries [have a] high propensity for part-time employment.”

The Mornington Peninsula is home to higher rates of part-timers than most of Melbourne, which Hall attributes to the tourism industry and a semi-retired workforce.

This stretches from Mount Eliza (40.6 per cent) down through Mornington (40.4 per cent), Mount Martha (42.1 per cent), Safety Beach (41.5 per cent), Dromana (42.6 per cent), to Rosebud and Rye (44.8 per cent each).

“I think… in coastal locations, tourism-type industries, you see high shares of part-time employment, and people are living around that to access those sorts of jobs,” said Hall.

“But you’ve also got… an older resident profile, and the older residents in the peninsula have a higher propensity to work in part-time roles, largely because of the type of jobs that are there, but it could also be the [lifestyle] shift out of Melbourne [with people] still working part-time – so even that sort of 50-plus, like pre-retirement [demographic] starting to ease down with that coastal kind of shift.”

In the outer west and north, new or fast-growing suburbs such as Manor Lakes, Strathtulloh, Thornhill Park, Fraser Rise and Kalkallo all recorded lower percentages of part-time workers. These are all areas that are largely home to young families in which one or both parents work full-time.

Crossing supervisor (98.7 per cent) is the occupation with the highest percentage of part-timers, with sports umpire (97.9), newspaper deliverer (94.3 per cent), busser (92.2 per cent) and swimming coach (91.7 per cent) rounding out the top five.

The census, collected in August 2021, asked people to estimate how many hours they worked across all their jobs over the previous week, although some results may have been affected by the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time.

Some jobs tend to have shorter hours during the winter months, which affects the data. Lifeguards rank 18th when it comes to having the highest percentage of part-time workers, but if the census had been carried out during the height of summer, then the results may have been different.

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