According to the ABS, average employment across mining and extraction industries combined grew by an average of 11%, equivalent to nearly 24,000 full time jobs in 2018-2019.

There are currently 3,800 more people employed in the upstream oil and gas sector at the end of May than in February, the latest data shows, a substantial increase in Australia's overall resources workforce.

The Australian Petroleum Production Exploration Association chief Andrew McConville said the latest surge was a result of "renewed confidence" within industry.

"These employment figures reinforce the importance of the oil and gas sector as a key driver for the national economy and are a result of many large scale natural gas projects coming onstream," McConville said. 

"[The oil and gas sector] underpins around 80,000 direct and indirect jobs - and hundreds of thousands of Australian jobs rely on the reliable, affordable and sustainable supply of oil and gas."

Nearly all of the new jobs are full-time positions, with just 100 out of the 4,000 part-time, with a new total of 26,100.

However, these figures are still down on February 2018 - when employment hit a five-year high of 32,000.

The latest figures are up drastically in comparison to this time two years ago. During May 2017 the ABS recorded the lowest employment figures in the oil and gas sector of just 18,200 jobs.

Minerals Council of Australia chief Tania Constable said the oil and gas as well as the mining sectors were doing "the heavy lifting" in jobs creation across Australia.

"Continued jobs growth in Australia's world-leading resources sector and exports relies on Federal and state governments to support policies that deliver greater investment, enabling Australian companies to be more productive," Constable said.

Of the 26,100 currently employed in the Australian oil and gas workforce, 19,500 are male and 6,600 female, the highest-ever level of female employment in the sector.