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INTRODUCTION

This information paper provides an outline of changes to the Average Weekly Earnings, Australia (cat. no. 6302.0) AusStats Time Series Spreadsheets.


CHANGE TO MICROSOFT EXCEL FORMAT

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has introduced a new method of presenting time series data to the AusStats service. The Lotus 1-2-3 time series spreadsheets are being replaced with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

For the February 2005 issue of Average Weekly Earnings, Australia (cat. no. 6302.0) the AusStats Time Series Spreadsheets are provided in the usual Lotus 1-2-3 format (.wks). A sample of the layout of the new Microsoft Excel format spreadsheets (.xls) is attached to this Information Paper.

From the May 2005 issue of Average Weekly Earnings, Australia (cat. no. 6302.0), due for release on 18 August 2005, the AusStats Time Series Spreadsheets will only be presented in Microsoft Excel format (.xls).

A concordance between the current AusStats tables (Lotus 1-2-3 .wks format) and the new tables (Microsoft Excel .xls format) is included below.

The Microsoft Excel spreadsheets offer clearer presentation, simpler data navigation and retrieval, and enhanced metadata content over the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets. The new format files can be opened, read and manipulated using Excel 5.0/95 (or equivalent), however, some features will not be available unless you have Excel 97 (or a later version).


CHANGES TO SPREADSHEET CONTENT

In addition to the file format change, some of the content of the spreadsheets has changed. These changes apply to the data provided in Microsoft Excel format only:

• Included in the 'original series' spreadsheets are data relating to Standard Errors.

• New series showing states and territories by sector are presented (table numbers 14A to 14H, see concordance below).

• The presentation of the data has also changed. For instance, time periods are represented by rows, and data items by columns.