Melbourne at a Glance

Working in Melbourne

Melbourne's central business district has become a financial hub for pension funds and international banking.

Are you interested in working in Melbourne as an expat? Australia’s second largest city boasts numerous job opportunities, e.g. in growth fields such as IT or the life sciences. To find out about the urban economy, job hunting, working conditions, and office culture, read our InterNations guide to working in Melbourne.

Working in Melbourne means participating in a highly diversified urban economy. While the city’s importance as an Australian manufacturing center went into decline during the 1970s and 1980s, the metropolitan area now offers plenty of opportunities for working in Melbourne’s growth sectors and service industries. The state of Victoria is Australia’s second largest economic contributor, right after New South Wales, creating 25% of the nation’s gross domestic product. In a London School of Economics study from 2010, Victoria’s state capital ranked 14 in a list of the world’s 150 top-performing economic areas – one more reason to consider working in Melbourne.

Working in Melbourne: Agriculture, Mining, and Manufacturing

Outside Melbourne, in rural Victoria, the primary sector is still of some importance. Laborers and farmers working in Melbourne’s agribusiness produce mainly grain and fruit or specialize in sheep-farming and dairy products. Today, the great gold rush that led to Melbourne’s first boom has long become a colorful era in the history of Victoria. For foreign engineers, however, working in Melbourne’s mining industry could be of considerable interest: The region boasts resources of gas, petroleum, and brown coal.

Manufacturing

As far as the manufacturing industry is concerned, what was once the main pillar of the local labor market and the pride of many people working in Melbourne has been crumbling slightly. On the one hand, the decreasing importance of traditional manufacturing is largely responsible for Victoria’s unemployment rate, the highest in Australia. On the other hand, 218,000 people are currently working in Melbourne’s factories and manufacturing companies. Aluminum production and the petrochemical industry are major employers.

Moreover, advanced manufacturing has found its way into metropolitan Melbourne. For instance, the industrial development zone of Fisherman’s Bend is home to both factories and R&D facilities of the aerospace, automotive, defense, and marine industries, e.g. Boeing Aerostructures Australia. Foreigners with the qualifications for working in Melbourne’s high-tech industries should look into that possibility.

Working in Melbourne: The Service Sector

As mentioned above, working in Melbourne’s tertiary sector is the employment opportunity #1, for locals, expats and immigrants alike: Finance, education, health care, IT, the life sciences, logistics, and tourism are of great significance for the urban economy. Being among the Top 50 financial cities around the globe, Melbourne has become a key center for Australia’s pension funds. It is also home to the corporate HQs of the National Australia Bank, Goldman & Sachs, and Standard & Poor’s. If you are an expat with professional experience in international finance, this could be your chance for working in Melbourne.

Health Care and Life Sciences

Furthermore, there is an ongoing shortage of skilled staff working in Melbourne’s health-care facilities and medical services. On the research side, Melbourne’s nine universities are important employers, but you might want to explore the bio-tech market as well. Half of Australia’s top 20 bio-tech businesses are based in the Melbourne region. Scientists working in Melbourne’s pharmaceutical companies are involved in clinical trials of new medications, stem-cell research, and the development of new cancer therapies.

IT and Tourism

Nearly one third of all ICT jobs in Australia are located in Melbourne, due to the availability of venture capital and the good climate for start-ups. Working in Melbourne is thus attractive for computer and communication specialists as well as for geeks active in the open source software movement.

Last but not least, tourism is another essential pillar of Melbourne’s economy. In 2009, 15.9 million domestic visitors and 1.4 million international tourists – mainly from Asian countries, New Zealand, and the UK – came to the city, spending far over 15 billion AUS there. So, if you are interested in working in Melbourne’s event management agencies, catering or the hotel business, this city might just be the thing for you.