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Hospitality workers, beauticians, and house cleaners have bourne the brunt of massive job losses during the coronavirus pandemic.
Closures of pubs and restaurants, restrictions on close contact services, and public fears of going out left thousands in Centrelink queues.
However, other industries had enormous booms as Australians spent more time at home and needed their goods and services more than ever.
© Provided by Daily MailDemand for IT workers has soared as Australians increasingly work from home during the Covid pandemic (stock image)
The need for IT experts rose dramatically along with handymen and gardeners, detailed labour force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed.
The rush to digitise and work from home was n a windfall for database and system administrators as well as computer security experts.
IT industry jobs surged by 23 per cent to about 50,000 workers from February to November last year.
But the biggest winners in the increasingly volatile job market were handymen.
Demand for home improvement services increased by about a third to 59,000 - as more Australians work from home and many were restricted from travelling due to various international and state border lockdowns.
Gardening jobs also blossomed during the pandemic with 87,000 Australians reporting to be employed in the role - a rise of 27 per cent.
But while it was a boom time for some, industries that require a large degree of social contact have suffered immensely.
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Leading the decline is the hospitality sector with almost 20,000 jobs disappearing in the wake of lockdowns and Covid capacity restrictions.
© Provided by Daily MailThe hospitality sectors has seen more job losses than any other industry in Australia. Pictured: A waiter brings food to the table at a Sydney restaurant on February 12
© Provided by Daily MailGardeners have also blossomed during the pandemic with 87,000 Australians reporting to be employed in the role - a rise of 27 per cent
About 39 per cent of all job losses during the Covid crisis stem from a handful of occupations including waiters, bartenders, baristas, kitchen hands, chefs, drivers and beauty therapists.
Australia's unemployment rate jumped from 5.3 per cent in September quarter of 2019 to reach a high of 7.5 per cent in July last year.
That figure has since improved with the help of massive government stimulus measures like the JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs and now sits at 6.6 per cent.
But Martin North from Digital Finance Analytics said low-skilled young people in low income sectors are feeling most of the economic pain - with young unemployment at a staggering 13.9 per cent.
'I think what it means is we are in grave danger of creating a generation of people who will be at an economic disadvantage and not just in the short term,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
© Provided by Daily Mailoccupations including waiters, bartenders, baristas, kitchen hands, chefs, drivers and beauty therapists. Pictured: A hairdresser in Brisbane is pictured on March 25, 2020 before a nationwide shutdown went into effect
'If you look at the UK in the 1970s, there was a very high youth unemployment rate and it took about five to eight years to shake through the economy so I wonder if we are going to see something similar in Australia.'
Mr North warned that many jobs hit by the pandemic may never return.
'The retail sector is being ground down due to the move to online shopping,' he said.
'When you walk down main streets and see clothes shops that have been shutdown - where many young people would have worked - they will likely never reopen.
'The world of work has changed and with many people now working from home, it could be that many businesses in metropolitan CBDs will never come back.'
© Provided by Daily MailThe demand for handymen has increased by 30 percent during the pandemic: Pictured: Foreman Nick Mus, of Morbuild Builders, is seen working on a house renovation in Brisbane, Thursday, June 4, 2020
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