Employment
Labour Force Survey total civilian employment (ABS Cat. No. 6202.0) includes all persons aged 15 years and over who are in full- or part-time employment, except members of the permanent defence forces, certain diplomatic personnel of overseas governments, overseas residents in Australia, and members of non-Australian defence forces (and their dependants) stationed in Australia.5 The Labour Force Survey civilian employment series is published on a monthly basis. This is aggregated to quarterly data by taking the average seasonally adjusted level of employment over the three months of the quarter.
Output
Total GDP chain volume, seasonally adjusted, is published quarterly in the Australian System of National Accounts (ABS Cat. No. 5206.0).
Wages
Average Earnings National Accounts (AENA) is published in the Australian System of National Accounts (ABS Cat. No. 5206.0). It is calculated by dividing Non-farm Compensation of Employees by the sum of Total Employees and Defence Employment(ABS Cat. Nos 5206.0, 6291.0 and 0911.0).6 Our model adjusts the average wage by an effective payroll tax rate, which is calculated by dividing total payroll taxes (ABS Cat. No. 5206.0) by total non-farm compensation of employees.
Note that the Total Employees series excludes owners of unincorporated businesses and a small number of contributing family workers working without pay (ABS Cat. No. 6291.0), which together account for around 11 per cent of total employment. Due to the difficulty of distinguishing between profits and wages among owners of unincorporated businesses, we take the average wages of the total employees group plus defence employment as a measure of aggregate average wages.
Output prices
The GDP deflator is calculated by dividing the seasonally adjusted National Accounts measures of quarterly total nominal GDP by the seasonally adjusted measure of quarterly total real GDP (ABS Cat. No. 5206.0).
5 For details of the Labour Force survey, see the ABS publication Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods – 6102.0.55.001 – Apr 2007.
6 ABS Catalogue Numbers 1210.0 and 0911.0 are provided to Treasury by special request with the quarterly Australian System of National Accounts.