DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

			Sep Qtr 14 to Dec Qtr 14	Dec Qtr 13 to Dec Qtr 14
			%	%
Sales of goods and services (Chain volume measures)
	Manufacturing
		Trend	-0.3	-2.1
		Seasonally Adjusted	0.0	-2.5
	Wholesale trade
		Trend	0.3	1.1
		Seasonally Adjusted	0.3	0.7
Inventories (Chain volume measures)
	Trend		0.4	0.4
	Seasonally Adjusted		-0.8	-0.5
Company gross operating profits
	Trend		-1.8	-7.3
	Seasonally Adjusted		-0.2	-5.9
Wages and salaries
	Seasonally Adjusted		0.3	1.8

Inventories (volume terms), Trend estimates

Company gross operating profits, Trend estimates

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


CHAIN VOLUME ESTIMATES

• The trend estimate for inventories rose 0.4% in the December quarter 2014. The seasonally adjusted estimate fell 0.8% this quarter.
• The trend estimate for Manufacturing sales of goods and services fell 0.3% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate was relatively unchanged.
• The trend estimate for Wholesale trade sales of goods and services rose 0.3% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.3%.

CURRENT PRICE ESTIMATES

• The seasonally adjusted estimate for company gross operating profits fell 0.2% in the December quarter 2014.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for wages and salaries rose 0.3% in the December quarter 2014.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
March 2015	1 June 2015
June 2015	31 August 2015
September 2015	30 November 2015
December 2015	29 February 2016

COMPARISON BETWEEN COMPANY GROSS OPERATING PROFITS AND GROSS OPERATING SURPLUS

Valuation changes have had an impact on the value of inventories held by Australian businesses this quarter. An inventories valuation adjustment (IVA) is applied in the calculation of the gross operating surplus of private non-financial corporations (GOS) estimate in the Australian National Accounts. The IVA for the December quarter 2014 is -$602m which is $148m higher than the September quarter 2014 IVA of -$750m.

No adjustment is made to the company gross operating profits (CGOP) estimate in this publication and, as a result, users should exercise caution when comparing CGOP and GOS. It should be noted that there are other differences between the two series. In particular, changes are made to GOS when annual benchmarks are applied and slightly different seasonal factors apply to the two series. Given this, while CGOP movements are an appropriate indicator for GOS, the two series will not have equivalent seasonally adjusted movements from quarter to quarter.


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