And Melburnians are more likely than ever to work in healthcare, with the city's ageing population leading to a dramatic rise in the number of jobs in the industry.

An analysis of 2016 Census employment figures by economists and planners SGS shows Australian cities are booming, as jobs growth languishes in regional areas.

As the nation's cities put on a net increase of 900,000 jobs in the five years to 2016, the rest of Australia recorded only 5400 new jobs.

And jobs growth in Melbourne and Sydney's inner city areas is outpacing employment increases in the middle and outer suburbs of both cities.

The central city jobs boom is exacerbating transport problems as more and more CBD-bound workers squeeze onto congested roads or crowded public transport at peak times.

"Both central Sydney and central Melbourne are increasing the pace at which knowledge-intensive jobs are relocating [to them] in Australia," SGS partner Terry Rawnsley said.

He said the figures for Perth and Brisbane showed the end of the mining boom had meant professional services jobs in their central cities had dropped off.

"Those [white collar] people who no longer work in mining in those towns have moved to do professional services work in Melbourne or Sydney," Mr Rawnsley said.

In the decade to 2016, jobs in the wider Melbourne metropolitan area - covering almost 9000 square kilometres - grew by a third, from 1.5 million to 2 million jobs.

But employment in central Melbourne, a 32-square-kilometre area bounded by Melbourne City Council's boundaries, grew by 42 per cent - or by 124,000 jobs.

The Andrews government's focus on big transport projects such as the Metro Tunnel rail line and the West Gate Tunnel toll road - which will both funnel greater numbers of outer and middle suburb residents into the city centre - will help continue the trend.

While the increased concentration of employment generated economic benefits for those working and living near the city centre, it also helped push up middle and inner suburban house prices, SGS found.

Mr Rawnsley said state governments needed to respond to these challenges by improving public transport capacity and infrastructure, and through increasing housing supply in inner areas.

Almost a quarter of the 900,000 new jobs created across the nation in the five years to 2016 were in healthcare and social-assistance related industries, which put on 153,900 extra positions.

Numbers were particularly high for residential care and nursing home jobs.

The childcare sector also had a big increase in employment, driven by a baby boom that gathered pace in 2012. Those having children were also more likely to be double-income households, driving the need for more childcare jobs.

Education and training were also big drivers of jobs growth, due to a population boom. Melbourne last year grew by an average of 300 people a day. Increased demand from overseas students attending Australian universities also pushed up job numbers.