Industry of Employment (IND06P)
This variable describes the industries in which employed people aged 15 years and over work.
For the 2006 Census, a person's industry of employment was classified based on responses to a range of questions, and in particular Questions 42 and 43, which ask for a description of the business, and the main goods produced, or main services provided. The name of the business, the employed person's occupation and main tasks and duties, may also help in classifying industry of employment.
The Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) is used in classifying the responses given to the industry questions for the 2006 Census. ANZSIC was first published in 1993 and has been revised for 2006. Industry of employment data from the 2006 Census will be available based on both the original and revised classifications i.e. ANZSIC 1993 and ANZSIC 2006.
The occupation or task of an individual, in general, should not be used to determine the industry in which the person works because industry coding based on occupation can give a very different result to that based on the employer's activity. For example, a person works for a coal mining company as a driver of the company's coal trucks. The individual's occupation is truck driver. However, the industry of the individual's employer is Coal Mining and not Transport. This example illustrates how using an individual's occupation as a proxy for industry can lead to erroneous industry coding. A business may employ many people in different occupations but the employees should all be coded to the industry of that business.
Information on the type of industry carried out by the employer at the workplace has been gathered in each Census since 1911. The name of employer and address of workplace has been collected since the 1954 Census. The inclusion of the industry topic in the Census provides a source of useful information on the regional distribution and structure of Australian industry, and allows investigation of structural change in industry over time. It also provides information on the characteristics of workers by industry (such as age, qualification and occupation), which is important for workforce studies, and the identification of migrant and other groups by industry.
See also Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), Place of Work (POWP) and Working population.
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