Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be added to the Australian economy over the next five years, but that's of small comfort to workers in the declining mining and manufacturing sectors, writes Greg Jericho.

Last week the Department of Employment released its projections for employment for the next five years. They revealed, lest anyone still be under any doubt, that the first stage of the mining boom is over and our economy continues to shift away from manufacturing.

The Prime Minister last year made much of his promise to deliver a million jobs within five years. So Tony Abbott should be quite glad to hear the Department of Employment projects about 998,700 more people employed across much of the economy by November 2018. The problem is the department also predicts some industries will employ about 160,000 fewer people. Thus currently the projection is for a net result of 838,100 more jobs - rather a bit below the million target.

Somewhat hilariously, advisers to the Minister for Employment, Senator Abetz, were reported in The Australian by David Crowe as having asked the Department to "massage" the numbers to get them up to the million mark. The Department issued a statement denying this; however, Crowe's reporting included a considerable amount of detail from leaked emails about how the minister's office pushed the number up to a million, and it is interesting to note that when the projections came out, Crowe had been right about the figure of 838,100 new jobs.

Moreover, the projections were issued with the caveat that:

... they may not fully take account of the Government's policies to boost employment growth, including reducing red tape costs, lowering the company tax rate and abolishing the carbon and mining taxes. Accordingly, these projections may understate employment growth over the five years to November 2018.

Such a statement clearly stinks of political interference, and certainly previous job projections never had such caveats attached.

The reality is that the overall number isn't all that interesting; the breakdown of the figures tells the real story. For they show us where the jobs are expected to be - and where they won't be.

And they sure as heck won't be in mining:

In the five years to November 2013, the mining industry experienced the biggest growth in employment in percentage terms and was the fourth biggest in nominal terms. And yet the Department of Employment predicts in the next five years it will be the industry that loses the second most jobs in nominal terms and the most in percentage terms.

The mining industry declines are pretty much across the whole industry, but the main falls certainly highlight the changing nature of the mining boom:

The biggest drops are in exploration and other support services (exploration alone will see a 15 per cent decline). That in itself indicates where the industry is heading - not looking for new mines, but concentrating on digging up the ones already there (activity that requires many fewer workers).

The only growth areas are in "mining nfd" (not further defined) and non-metallic mining and quarrying - mostly sand mining, which is used for construction. This highlights that the construction industry is set to be a driver of jobs growth - increasing by a projected 8 per cent compared to just 3.1 per cent in the past five years.

But while construction may take up some of the slack from the mining sector, for those hoping the manufacturing industry might turn a corner, alas, the news there stays bad.

It lost 87,000 jobs in the past five years and is set to lose another 40,000 - the vast majority coming from motor vehicle manufacturing.

The only real growth sector in the industry, as is the case in the mining sector, is in the category marked "nfd".

While such a category is legitimate, the projected growth in both sectors seems out of whack with the past five years where mining and manufacturing "nfd" growth was broadly in line with the rest of the industry. It does suggest that the abnormal growth in both sectors over the next five years isn't so much the Department "massaging the figures" as perhaps suspecting (hoping?) that there will be jobs in the mining and manufacturing industry, but not being quite sure just where.

The decline in manufacturing and mining is put into pretty harsh relief when we look at the projected top 15 declining job sectors over the next five years:

Nine of the 15 sectors to lose the most jobs are associated with mining and manufacturing, including the heavy civil engineering construction sector.

That's a lot of blue collar jobs gone.

And the changing picture is further highlighted when we look at the top 15 growth sectors, which account for more than 50 per cent of the total growth in employment:

Eight of the 15 are in the health and education industries, and two of the top five are in retail. The ever-moving shift towards a service-based economy appears unchanged - and perhaps a little speeded up.

By 2018, the Department projects manufacturing will be only our sixth biggest employer. Up till 2001 it was our biggest and only in 2005 did it drop to third biggest.

Consider this: the Department of Employment projects that by 2018 there will be only 22,200 people working in the motor vehicle and parts manufacturing sector. But in the next five years it predicts 23,500 extra jobs in child-care service, 31,100 extra in computer system design and related services, 32,700 extra in the tertiary education sector, 80,000 extra in supermarket retailing and in takeaway and food retailing, and 121,000 extra working in the medical care and hospitals sectors.

By 2018 there will be 21 per cent more people working in the health care industry than in the second biggest industry, retail. There will be 82 per cent more working in the health care industry than in manufacturing.

This all is in line with the picture of our population ageing, with more people needing to take care of the elderly - and also to take care of their medical issues. And while we still will be a nation that makes things, fewer and fewer of us will be doing so each year.

Greg Jericho writes weekly for The Drum. He tweets at @GrogsGamut. View his full profile here.