Small Business in Australia

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW
Small Business in Australia is a reference document which draws together information from a number of sources where data are able to be classified by business size. The publication has a focus on the small business sector.

PURPOSE
The publication aims to meet the demands of users who require statistics on the structure of the small business sector in Australia. It is generally published every two years with editions in 1988, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999. It covers all private sector businesses with detail on the number of businesses and their employment presented by State, industry and employment size. Non employing businesses are included in this analysis. In addition, various selected statistics are presented on topics such as business bankruptcy, legal status of businesses, business performance, employment generation, use of computers and the Internet, training in business as well as small business profiles of selected industries.

SCOPE
The collection scope is all non government businesses in Australia. Agriculture is excluded from the core tables, but is separately covered in it's own section of the publication. The coverage achieved is determined by coverage achieved by the contributing surveys.

DATA DETAIL

Conceptual framework
Not Applicable

Main outputs
Population or Sub-population - Units: Number of businesses - counts of Management units for employing businesses and actual businesses for non-employing businesses;

Employees and employers - persons.

Characteristics of Interest : The core tables present numbers of businesses and number of people employed by State and industry. Other tables present business performance details, legal status details, data on use of computers and the Internet and training in business.

Type of Statistics: Mostly level estimates with annual change presented for numbers of businesses and number of employees.

Data Breakdowns: Most data are disaggregated by state, by industry and by business size.

Classifications
Industry data are generally Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) Division, with publications pre 1995 using Australian Standard Industrial Classification (ASIC);

For business size, small business is always identified. Small business (excluding Agriculture) is defined as those businesses employing less than 20 people. Where detail is available data are presented in business size groups.

The following groups are identified:
Non employing businesses, businesses employing 1-4 people (micro businesses), 5-19 people, 20-99 people, 100-199 people and those employing 200 or more people

Other concepts (summary)
Not Applicable

GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
Australia
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Northern Territory
ACT

Comments and/or Other Regions
State data are available for all core data, with other data generally only available at the national level.

COLLECTION FREQUENCY
2 Yearly

Frequency comments
Key tables are updated annually to provide the most used data for the intervening years.

COLLECTION HISTORY
The first edition was released in 1988 to meet a strong demand for data relating specifically to small businesses. Each edition generally presents similar core data. The detail of the additional information presented depends on the relevant data available at the time. Data are available for 1988, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999.

DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes