MARCH KEY FIGURES

			Dec Qtr 15 to Mar Qtr 16	Mar Qtr 15 to Mar Qtr 16
			%	%
Sales of goods and services (Chain volume measures)
	Manufacturing
		Trend	-1.0	-4.0
		Seasonally Adjusted	-0.3	-4.3
	Wholesale trade
		Trend	1.8	3.7
		Seasonally Adjusted	3.2	3.5
Inventories (Chain volume measures)
	Trend		0.1	0.3
	Seasonally Adjusted		0.4	0.6
Company gross operating profits
	Trend		-3.1	-6.6
	Seasonally Adjusted		-4.7	-8.4
Wages and salaries
	Seasonally Adjusted		0.6	3.5

Inventories (volume terms), Trend estimates

Company gross operating profits, Trend estimates

MARCH KEY POINTS


CHAIN VOLUME ESTIMATES

• The trend estimate for inventories rose 0.1% in the March quarter 2016. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.4% this quarter.
• The trend estimate for Manufacturing sales of goods and services fell 1.0% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate fell 0.3% this quarter.
• The trend estimate for Wholesale trade sales of goods and services rose 1.8% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 3.2%.

CURRENT PRICE ESTIMATES

• The seasonally adjusted estimate for company gross operating profits fell 4.7% in the March quarter 2016.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for wages and salaries rose 0.6% in the March quarter 2016.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2016	5 September 2016
September 2016	5 December 2016
December 2016	27 February 2017
March 2017	5 June 2017

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 March quarter 2016 is -$1,888m which is $567m lower than the December quarter 2015 IVA of -$1,321m.

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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