Banks are slashing staff, the retail sector is shredding jobs, and today Qantas laid off 500 workers, with the airline tipped to sack another thousands.

So which industries are most at risk, and which are predicted to thrive in 2012?

After more than fifteen years working in finance, Lidia Ribarovska's only job now is trying to find one.

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Restructuring at Alleasing saw wholesale redundancies and “an office of 70 was reduced to ten staff,” Ribarovska said.

Now out of work for almost a year, the mother of two is finding her loyalty to Alleasing is not helping.

“It seems employers are not necessarily interested in people who've had long term service - they are taking on the job hoppers,” Ribarovska said.

Louis Chouaifaity has spent the past three decades developing his manufacturing company, A and L Welding, but in the past three years work has dried up.

“I worry about the future of the apprentices, we don’t know what the future is going to be for them,” Chouaifaity said.

“90 per cent of the jobs are going overseas, back to Korea, China, India - we can’t compete,” he said.

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The high Aussie dollar and lack of Government protection has meant he's had to sack more than half his staff.

“Four years ago we had close to 100 people. Gradually we started to cut down, and now we employ about 45 people,” he said.

Chouaifaity wants Governments here to offer the same sort of support his overseas competition receives.

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“We heard the Korean Government gives manufacturers subsidies if they get an overseas job – a twenty per cent subsidy on materials. Here we don’t get anything,” he added.

Since the start of this year, hundreds of job cuts have been announced across the manufacturing sector.

• Alcoa: 600
• Toyota: 350
• Holden: 100
• Heinz: 150
• Reckitt Benckiser (RB): 200
• O-I Australia: 70

Alcoa's aluminium smelter in Geelong, which employs 600 workers, will shut down unless the Government intervenes. Job cuts are also on the cards at Toyota, Holden, Heinz, RB, maker of Mortein fly spray, and glass manufacturer OI.

“Manufacturing is clearly what we call ‘trade exposed suffering’. We believe one of the responses from Government should be to abandon the Carbon Tax. We can’t afford it at the moment. It's placing strain on the industry, and competitive disadvantage,” Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Director of Economics Greg Evans said.

“Outside buoyancy of the mining sector, we're seeing some 80 per cent of the economy probably growing at about one per cent, so there's definitely a diverging performance in the Australian economy, and that's leading to job pressures,” he added.

• ANZ: 1000
• Westpac: 560
• Suncorp: 136
• NAB: 130

Across the finance sector so far this year, ANZ has announced it’s shedding 1,000 workers, with most of those jobs going overseas. At Westpac, Suncorp and NAB, things aren't as bad, but still more than 800 positions will go.

And the future looks bleak indeed for the finance sector. Analysts are warning far worse is to come. Over the next eighteen months the forecast is for another 10,000 jobs to go, making this industry, along with manufacturing and retail, the least secure for workers.

“We've had very low levels of credit growth, so banks aren’t lending as much money as they once were to small business, and that probably has resulted in less staff needed in those areas,” Evans said.

But according to Leigh Rowbottom, General Manger of Morgan Consulting, it is not all doom and gloom. He says for some this is boom time.

“We have lists as long as our arms of companies looking to hire people now, across all sectors,” Rowbottom said.

Areas that are expected to grow are accounting, IT and childcare. “There's more pressure on parents to return to the workforce, so they want before-school care and after-school care,” he said.

Our aging population will ensure growth in employment in health and social assistance, and of course there is mining, construction and engineering.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that mining, resources, and mineral sectors are growing - there are massive demands,” he added.

But try telling that to unskilled, potential mine worker Alex Gonzales. Despite spending $5,000 securing his dump truck licence, he's received rejection after rejection.

The 23-year-old has erected a sign, pleading for a job, as mining companies propose to fly in foreign workers.

“How do you get the experience, that’s the million dollar question,” he said.

The advice is to be willing to take on new training, relocate and be open to other industries.

“Everyone should take any change in employment as an opportunity, an opportunity to do something different, experience something different,” Rowbottom concluded.

• Morgan Consulting - www.morganconsulting.com.au