CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE


RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

The ABS is facing a tight budget situation, which has led to a range of reductions in the ABS work program. As a result of these work program reductions, the non-wage and labour price indexes have been discontinued.


DISCONTINUED INDEXES

Four non-wage indexes were constructed and published annually each September quarter. These indexes were first compiled for the 2001-02 financial year, and cover:

• annual and public holiday leave index
• superannuation index
• payroll tax index
• workers' compensation index.

These four non-wage indexes were combined with the total hourly rates of pay indexes to produce two total labour price indexes:

• labour price index including bonuses
• labour price index excluding bonuses.

These indexes have been discontinued with the last data in the series relating to the 2010-11 financial year. Historical data for these indexes can be found in the September quarter 2011 edition of this publication.


WAGE PRICE INDEX

The wage price indexes, which do not include non-wage components, are unaffected by the above changes and will continue to be published quarterly. The four wage price indexes are:

• ordinary time hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses index
• ordinary time hourly rates of pay including bonuses index
• total hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses index
• total hourly rates of pay including bonuses index.

To reflect the change in content, this publication will now be known as Wage Price Index, Australia. The catalogue number (6345.0) remains the same.


TIMING OF CHANGES

These changes take effect from the September quarter 2012 issue of this publication.


FURTHER INFORMATION

To obtain further information on the impact of these changes please contact Luci Burrage on (08) 9360 5151 or email wage.price.index@abs.gov.au.