The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has published the first, detailed Labour Account of jobs across industries including secondary employment.
“The Australian Labour Account gives a rich picture of the dynamics of the labour market. For the first time we know how many jobs actually have people in them, and we can estimate people’s total hours worked and income across multiple jobs - not just their main job ," Bruce Hockman, Chief Economist at the ABS, said.
“These new experimental estimates show that, through the year to June 2016, filled jobs grew by 2.7 per cent, from 12.9 million to 13.2 million,” Mr Hockman said.
The Labour Account provides information across the 19 industry divisions available for each of the years from 2010-11 to 2015-16.
It also showed that an increase in the number of secondary jobs, which grew by 3.7 per cent, contributed to the overall growth in filled jobs.
"The Australian Labour Account showed that the total number of hours worked increased from 2014–15 to 2015-16 by 2.0 per cent, up to 20.2 billion hours," Mr Hockman said.
The Labour Account further showed that in 2015–16, total labour income increased by 3.8 per cent to $895.2 billion, while total labour costs increased by $34.4 billion (3.8 per cent) to $947.4 billion.
The Labour Account also provides longer term insights into changes that have occurred in the labour market over the past six years. Five years ago, the industries with the highest growth in jobs were Mining, Wholesale trade, and Professional, scientific and technical services. By comparison, more recently the industries with the highest growth were all service industries, such as Information media and telecommunications, Administrative and support services, and Health care and social assistance.
The Labour Account provides a new framework through which to use existing labour market data from diverse sources. It is also an important new source of industry information that is expected to lead to improvements in the measurement of productivity in Australia.
Further details can be found in Labour Account Australia, Experimental Estimates (cat. no. 6150.0.55.001) and Information Paper: Australian Labour Account (cat. no. 6150.0.55.002). These are available for free download from www.abs.gov.au.