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Occupational Risk due to COVID-19 in NSW

As the health and economic impact of COVID-19 continues to unfold throughout Australia, people who do not have the luxury of working from home are exposed to heightened risk of infection. Our societies have always relied on these workers to function and this has become more apparent during the pandemic. In addition to occupational risk factors, there are socio-economic challenges which are amplified by the economic downturn. We've pulled together the stats to visualise these issues.

Data Visualisation Interactive Maps

Author
Date
May 2020

Key points:

  • - Generally, workers in CBD and inner-city locations in Sydney face lower risks.
  • - Healthcare, personal care aides and home care workers are at highest risk.
  • - Some high risk occupations are disproportionately done by women.
  • - Part-time workers are more likely to work in occupations that involve close contact with people.
  • - Low income workers are more likely required to work in close proximity to other people.

We adopted the New York Times' approach from this study by using exposure to disease or infection and physical proximity to others as proxies for measuring occupational risk to COVID-19. The work context dataset from O*NET was mapped to the ANZSCO classification system that we use in Australia with the help of Dr Andrew Reeson from CSIRO. Employment statistics by postcode, such as the percentage of female workers, were obtained from Australian Bureau of Statistics.

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