6345.0 - Labour Price Index, Australia, Mar 2011 
Quality Declaration
Quality Declaration ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 18/05/2011
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EXPLANATORY NOTES
4 Four non-wage price indexes are constructed. These are financial year indexes and were first compiled for the 2001-02 financial year. The non-wage indexes cover:
5 From the individual wage and non-wage components a labour price index can be constructed. Two versions of the labour price index are produced and, like the non-wage price indexes, they are financial year indexes (first compiled for 2001-02):
6 The full set of LPI's is updated annually in the September quarter LPI publication. In all other quarters a summary LPI table is published as an appendix to the publication. DESIGN OF THE INDEXES BROAD DESCRIPTION 7 The wage, non-wage and labour price indexes measure changes over time in the price of labour unaffected by changes in the quality or quantity of work performed. A range of procedures have been developed to identify and measure quality and quantity changes and ensure that only pure price changes are reflected in the indexes. 8 Price-determining characteristics of the jobs are detailed in fixed pricing specifications and any changes in labour payments due to changes in the pricing specifications do not contribute to index movements. The following are examples of changes in price-determining characteristics which are not reflected in index movements:
9 Changes in the price of labour resulting from changes in the composition of the labour market are also excluded from index movements. To achieve this, price movements for each segment of the labour market (defined by state/territory, sector and industry) are combined using expenditure weights that remain constant between successive weighting base periods. WAGE PRICE INDEXES 10 The ordinary time hourly rates of pay indexes that exclude bonuses measure quarterly changes in ordinary time hourly wage and salary rates. Changes in rates of pay reflected in these indexes (i.e. pure price changes) arise from a range of sources including award variations, enterprise and workplace agreements, minimum wage setting, individual contracts and informal arrangements. 11 These indexes are not affected by changes in:
12 The effect of rolling ordinary time penalty payments and allowances into ordinary time hourly rates is excluded from these indexes. However, when overtime penalty payments are rolled into ordinary time hourly rates, the ordinary time indexes will increase accordingly. 13 The total hourly rates of pay indexes that exclude bonuses are based on a weighted combination of ordinary time hourly wage and salary rates (described in paragraphs 10 and 11) and overtime hourly rates. As a result, the total hourly indexes reflect changes in both the ordinary time and overtime hourly rates. However, the effect of changes in the amount of overtime paid at each overtime rate is not shown in these indexes. 14 Only those indexes that exclude bonuses and commissions are pure price indexes because bonus and commission payments can reflect changes in the quality of work performed. No attempt is made to remove this quality element from the indexes that include bonuses and commissions. 15 A review of the treatment of bonuses and commissions resulted in methodological changes in the March quarter 2006. Details of these changes and the likely impact on the indexes that include bonuses and commissions can be found in each of the 2006 editions of this publication. NON-WAGE PRICE INDEXES 16 The annual and public holiday leave index is calculated using both ordinary time hourly wage and salary rates, and the amount of annual and public holiday leave offered by employers. Pure price changes in either of these variables will reflect in the index. The index specifically prices leave entitlements and therefore will not show changes due to fluctuations in the actual amount of leave taken by job occupants. 17 The superannuation index is calculated using ordinary time hourly wage and salary rates, and the rate of superannuation that is paid by employers. Pure price changes in either of these variables will be reflected in the index. Superannuation payments equal to and above the legislated minimum specified in the Superannuation Guarantee Act 1992 are included in the index. Amounts that are salary sacrificed to superannuation are included in the wage price indexes and not the superannuation index. 18 The payroll tax and workers' compensation indexes are calculated differently to the other wage and non-wage indexes. As these costs are both levied at the employer level, the indexes are calculated using total payroll information rather than rates of pay data. The separate indexes are derived by applying either payroll tax rates/thresholds or workers' compensation premium rates to the total payroll data. The indexes reflect pure price changes in total payroll and either changes in the payroll tax rates/thresholds or workers' compensation premium rates. 19 Data quality concerns exist in relation to the workers' compensation premium rates for the ACT private sector. Until these concerns are resolved, these data will be imputed based on industry averages across Australia. Workers' compensation index numbers for the ACT private sector will not be published separately. LABOUR PRICE INDEXES 20 Two labour price indexes (one including bonuses and one excluding them) are constructed from the individual wage and non-wage components. As with the wage price indexes, only the labour price index that excludes bonuses is a pure price index because bonuses tend to reflect, at least partly, changes in the quality of work performed. SCOPE AND COVERAGE 21 The target population of employers for the LPI is all employing organisations in Australia (private and public sectors) except:
22 A sample redesign of the LPI was undertaken and the outcome implemented from December quarter 2009. A result of this review was to stop collecting data on a quarterly basis from micro businesses (0-4 employment). The size and frequency of pay changes for jobs in micro businesses was found to be the same as businesses with employment of five or more. Therefore, micro businesses are now treated as being out of coverage of the LPI but remain in scope through their continued inclusion in the expenditure weights used in compiling the LPI. The introduction of this change does not impact what the LPI is measuring. 23 All employee jobs in the target population of employers are in scope of the LPI, except the following:
24 As such, full-time, part-time, permanent, casual, managerial and non-managerial jobs are in scope of the LPI. Costs incurred by employers for work undertaken by self-employed persons such as consultants and subcontractors are out-of-scope of the LPI, as they do not relate to employee jobs. DATA COLLECTION 25 Information for the wage price indexes is collected each quarter by mail questionnaires from a sample survey of private and public sector employers selected from the ABS Business Register. The survey reference date is the last pay period ending on or before the third Friday of the middle month of the quarter, except for bonuses which are collected in respect to those paid during the three month period ending on the third Friday of the middle month of the quarter. In the first quarter they participate in the survey, each employer selects a sample of jobs from their workplace(s) using sampling instructions provided by the ABS, and provides information for these jobs, including detailed pricing specifications. In subsequent quarters they are asked to provide details of payments made to the current occupants of these same jobs. It is essential that the same jobs are priced in successive quarters, whether the individual job occupants are the same or not. Approximately 18,000 matched jobs are priced each quarter from the selected employers. 26 The sampling method retains the highest possible common sample of employers over time, and retains the same sampled jobs within those employers where possible. However, it is also necessary to ensure the LPI continues to be relevant and representative over time. For these reasons, the employer sample is refreshed annually (for the December quarter) in a way that ensures a high proportion of common selections while allowing new employers to be represented in the sample. Refreshing the sample also allows the ABS to control the length of time that small businesses are included in the sample. 27 Between each annual refresh of the employer sample, a small number of employee jobs will be lost from the survey sample because of the closure of some businesses. In addition, some jobs in continuing businesses will be replaced in the sample because of restructuring and other job changes. 28 Annual leave and superannuation information is collected from the same job sample as that used to construct the wage price indexes. However, data are only collected annually as part of the June quarter LPI survey. Changes in the job sample due to factors such as the annual refreshing of the employer sample, together with the requirement of pricing the same jobs in successive years, reduces the number of matched jobs used to calculate the annual and public holiday leave index and the superannuation index compared with the matched jobs underlying the wage price indexes. 29 Information from administrative and other ABS data sources is used to construct the payroll tax and workers' compensation indexes, as well as the public holiday component of the annual and public holiday leave index. WEIGHTING 30 In the LPI, as with other price indexes, expenditure weights are used to combine elementary aggregates into broader level indexes. Expenditure weights reflect changes in the distribution of the number of employee jobs among industries, states/territories and sectors, as well as changes in labour cost relativities. These weights are derived from independent estimates of labour costs for each elementary aggregate. The estimates are sourced from other ABS surveys. The main source of estimates for updating expenditure weights in LPI is the Survey of Major Labour Costs (MLC). However, due to the time that has elapsed since the last MLC survey was conducted, estimates from the biennial Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours (EEH) are being used. The 2010 EEH has been used for the December quarter 2010 update. The use of an alternative source was considered necessary to ensure the most contemporary pattern of employer expenditure for labour among each segment of the labour market (elementary aggregate) was used. Appendix 1 shows the distribution of employers’ expenditure on wages and salaries, updated in December quarter 2010. 31 To facilitate comparison of index numbers over time, the published indexes are not re-referenced (i.e. reset to 100.0) each time this re-weighting occurs. Instead, the series based on the old expenditure weights and that based on the new weights are linked via an arithmetic calculation, which is referred to as chaining. This provides a continuous series from the commencement of the index, while incorporating the updated expenditure weights. INTERPRETATION OF INDEX NUMBERS 32 Index numbers in this publication measure changes in the price of labour between the commencement of the series and a later period. Index number levels cannot be compared across states/territories as they do not provide comparative information on the relative levels of labour costs. Similarly, index number levels cannot be compared across sectors or industries. The usefulness of index numbers stems from the fact that index numbers for any two periods can be used to directly calculate the change or movement in the price of labour between the two periods. These movements can be compared across states/territories, sectors or industries. PERCENTAGE CHANGE AND ROUNDING 33 The published index numbers have been rounded to one decimal place, and the percentage changes (also rounded to one decimal place) are calculated from the rounded index numbers. In some cases, this can result in the percentage change for the total level of a group of indexes being outside the range of the percentage changes for the component level indexes. Seasonally adjusted and trend quarterly estimates are calculated from unrounded original indexes. The percentage changes (rounded to one decimal place) are calculated from the rounded index numbers. INDEX MOVEMENTS 34 Movements in indexes from one period to another can be expressed either as changes in index points or as percentage changes. In this publication, percentage changes are calculated to illustrate three different kinds of movements in indexes:
35 The following example illustrates the method of calculating changes in index points and percentage changes between any two periods:
FINANCIAL YEAR INDEXES 36 Index numbers for financial years are calculated as simple (arithmetic) averages of the four quarterly index numbers for the financial year. As the wage price indexes were first produced for the September quarter 1997, the first financial year index number that can be calculated is for 1997-98. Consequently, the first percentage change between financial years that can be calculated is between 1997-98 and 1998-99. The following example illustrates the method of calculating the financial year index number for 2009-10:
37 Percentage changes between the index numbers for any two financial years can be calculated using the method outlined in paragraph 35 above. SEASONALLY ADJUSTED INDEXES 38 Seasonally adjusted estimates are derived by estimating and removing systematic calendar related effects from the original series. In most economic data these calendar related effects are a combination of the classical seasonal influences (e.g. the effect of the weather, social traditions or administrative practices) plus other kinds of calendar related variations, such as the number of trading days, Easter or the proximity of significant days in the year (e.g. Christmas). In the seasonal adjustment process, both seasonal and other calendar related factors evolve over time to reflect changes in activity patterns. The seasonally adjusted estimates reflect the sampling and non-sampling errors to which the original estimates are subject. 39 The total hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses index is the only index of the LPI that is seasonally adjusted. Institutional effects largely drive the seasonality of this index. Important factors in determining this seasonality are the timing of effect of agreements, the length of these agreements, and the timing of the implementation of significant wage determinations that impact on rates of pay. A significant institutional change in wage setting arrangements can affect the relative level (or trend) and seasonality of the index. 40 Prior to 2006, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) handed down annual Safety Net Review (SNR) decisions which set federal full-time minimum award rates. Since the commencement of the wage price index, the SNR contributed to the level of the wage price index. Most of its impact on the wage price index was in the September quarter with some residual effect in the December quarter each year. This impact contributed to the level of seasonality for those quarters. As a result of industrial relations changes associated with WorkChoices there was no SNR decision in 2006. The setting of federal minimum wage rates became the responsibility of the Australian Fair Pay Commission (AFPC). 41 The AFPC's first decision was handed down on 26 October 2006 with a date of effect of 1 December 2006. The impact on the wage price index of the first AFPC ruling was mainly in the March quarter 2007. From 2007 to 2009, AFPC determinations have impacted the December quarter wage price index. 42 On 1 July 2009 Fair Work Australia began operations as part of a new national workplace relations system underpinned by the Fair Work Act 2009. In June 2010 Fair Work Australia announced its first annual minimum wage decision: an increase of $26 a week, effective from 1 July 2010. The increase in minimum wage rates impacted the wage price index in the September quarter 2010. 43 Fair Work Australia minimum wage decisions are expected to continue to take effect in the September quarter of each year for the foreseeable future. This change in timing of minimum wage decisions is expected to see the original index increase more in the September quarter than in other quarters. To account for the change in timing, the seasonally adjusted and trend series have been reanalysed. The new series have been calculated to remove the influence of the different timing of minimum wage decisions in any year on the wage price index. CONCURRENT SEASONAL ANALYSIS 44 The LPI uses a concurrent seasonal adjustment methodology to derive the adjustment factors. This method uses the original time series available at each reference period to estimate seasonal factors for the current and previous quarters. Concurrent seasonal adjustment is technically superior to the more traditional method of reanalysing seasonal patterns once each year because it uses all available data to fine tune the estimates of the seasonal component each quarter. With concurrent analysis, the seasonally adjusted series are subject to revision each quarter as the estimates of the seasonal factors are improved. In most instances, the only significant revisions will be to the combined adjustment factors for the previous quarter and for the same quarter in the preceding year as the reference quarter (i.e. if the latest quarter is Qt then the most significant revisions will be to Qt-1 and Qt-4). Seasonal patterns are also reanalysed when there are known changes to regular events. This can lead to additional revisions. ARIMA MODELLING 45 Recently, the ABS has implemented improved methods of producing seasonally adjusted estimates, focused on the application of Autoregressive Integrated Moving Averages (ARIMA) modelling techniques. ARIMA modelling is a technique that can be used to extend original estimates beyond the end of a time series. The extended values are temporary, intermediate values, that are used internally to improve seasonal adjustment. They do not affect the original estimates and are discarded at the end of the seasonal adjustment process. The use of ARIMA modelling generally results in a reduction in revisions to the seasonally adjusted estimates when subsequent data becomes available. ARIMA modelling in the LPI was introduced in June quarter 2008. For more information on the details of ARIMA modelling see the feature article 'Use of ARIMA modelling to reduce revisions' in the October 2004 issue of Australian Economic Indicators (cat. no. 1350.0). TREND ESTIMATES 46 The trend is a measure of the underlying direction of a series. The ABS trend estimates for the wage price index are derived by applying a 7-term Henderson-weighted moving average to all quarters of the respective seasonally adjusted indexes except the first three and last three quarters. Trend estimates are created for these quarters by applying surrogates of the 7-term Henderson weighted moving average to the seasonally adjusted indexes, tailored to each time series. In general, trend estimates give a better indication of underlying behaviour than the seasonally adjusted estimates. Please refer to the ABS Information Paper, A Guide to Interpreting Time Series - Monitoring Trends (cat. no. 1349.0). 47 Increases in minimum wage rates contribute to the relative level (or trend) of the wage price index. A review of the seasonally adjusted series was undertaken in the September quarter 2010 to remove the impacts of the different timing of the increases in minimum wage rates. A trend break correction has been applied between June quarter and September quarter 2009 to remove the shift in the underlying level as a result of no increase to minimum wage rates being awarded in 2009. REFERENCE BASE PERIOD 48 The reference base period of an index series is that period for which the value of the index is set to 100.0. It is most commonly a year but can also be a different length of time, ranging from two or three years down to a single quarter. It often coincides with the weighting base for the series, but this is not essential. The September quarter 1997 was used as the original reference base for the wage price indexes as it was the first quarter for which data was available. With the introduction of the non-wage indexes, the reference base was changed to 2003-04. 49 With the implementation of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006, all indexes are presented on a reference base of 2008-09. An explanation of the re-referencing process is included in Appendix 2. REVISIONS TO INDEXES 50 Original index numbers will be released as final figures at the time they are first published. Revisions will only occur in exceptional circumstances. Trend and seasonally adjusted indexes for some quarters will be revised as extra quarters are included in the series analysed for seasonal influences (see paragraphs 38 to 47). RELATED PUBLICATIONS 51 Users may also wish to refer to the following publications which are available free on the ABS website <https://www.abs.gov.au>:
Information Paper: Update on ANZSIC 2006 Implementation for Labour Price Index, Australia, 2009, (cat. no. 6345.0.55.001) Consumer Price Index, Australia, (cat. no. 6401.0) House Price Indexes, Eight Capital Cities, (cat. no. 6416.0) International Trade Price Indexes, Australia, (cat. no. 6457.0) Producer Price Indexes, Australia, (cat. no. 6427.0) Australian Consumer Price Index: Concepts, Sources and Methods, (cat. no. 6461.0) Producer and International Trade Price Indexes: Concepts, Sources and Methods, (cat no. 6429.0) Australian Labour Market Statistics, (cat. no. 6105.0) 52 Current publications and other products released by the ABS are listed on the ABS website <https://www.abs.gov.au>. The ABS also issues a daily Release Advice on the website which details products to be released in the week ahead. ABS DATA AVAILABLE ON REQUEST 53 As well as the statistics included in this and related publications, the ABS may have other relevant data available on request. Inquiries should be made to Kathryn Parlor on Perth (08) 9360 5151 or the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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