Business Indicators, Business Impacts of COVID-19 methodology

This publication provides insights into the impacts and sentiments of businesses operating in Australia under the changing social and economic environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the seventh release of data from the survey.

This release forms part of a suite of additional products that the ABS is producing to measure the impacts of COVID-19 on the Australian economy and society.

For more information refer to https://www.abs.gov.au/covid19.

The COVID-19 Business Indicators Survey includes information on the following industries classified according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification, ANZSIC,

• Mining (Division B)
• Manufacturing (Division C)
• Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services (Division D)
• Construction (Division E)
• Wholesale Trade (Division F)
• Retail Trade (Division G)
• Accommodation and Food Services (Division H)
• Transport, Postal and Warehousing (Division I)
• Information Media and Telecommunications (Division J)
• Finance and Insurance (Division K, excluding ANZSIC class 6330, Superannuation Funds)
• Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services (Division L)
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (Division M)
• Administrative and Support Services (Division N)
• Education and Training (Division P)
• Health Care and Social Assistance (Division Q)
• Arts and Recreation Services (Division R)
• Other Services (Division S)
   

The scope excludes public sector business units (i.e. all departments, authorities and other organisations owned and controlled by Commonwealth, State and Local Government).

The survey includes Employing and Non-Employing Units on the ABS Business Register. However, micro non-employing businesses are excluded. These are very small units on the ABS Business Register, by standard measures of size.

The statistical unit used to represent businesses, and for which statistics are reported, is the Australian Business Number (ABN) unit, in most cases. The ABN unit is the business unit which has registered for an ABN, and thus appears on the ATO administered Australian Business Register. This unit is suitable for ABS statistical needs when the business is simple in structure.

For more significant and diverse businesses where the ABN unit is not suitable for ABS statistical needs, the statistical unit used is the Type of Activity Unit (TAU). A TAU is comprised of one or more business entities, sub-entities or branches of a business entity within an Enterprise Group that can report production and employment data for similar economic activities. When a minimum set of data items is available, a TAU is created which covers all the operations within an industry subdivision (and the TAU is classified to the relevant subdivision of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC)). Where a business cannot supply adequate data for each industry, a TAU is formed which contains activity in more than one industry subdivision and the TAU is classified to the predominant ANZSIC subdivision. Further details about the ABS economic statistical units used in this survey, and in other ABS economic surveys (both sample surveys and censuses), can be found in Chapter 2 of the Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia (SESCA) 2008 (cat. no. 1218.0).

The survey is based on a random sample of approximately 2,000 units stratified by industry and employment size. The final response rate was 60% (1,202 responding businesses).

The sample used in the August 2020 Survey was the same sample of 2,000 units used in the July 2020 Survey. Approximately 65% of the responding businesses in August were responding units in July.

The survey was conducted from one week after Melbourne moved to Stage 4 restrictions. State and territory estimates are not available however, the response rate for businesses based in Victoria was in line with the response rate for all businesses.

The survey sample is re-weighted to adjust for non-response and provide full population estimates.

The Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) has been developed for use in both countries for the production and analysis of industry statistics. For more information, users are referred to Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006 (cat. no. 1292.0).

When interpreting these results, please note that there may be systematic bias in these estimates that statistical procedures would not correct. In particular, estimates of the prevalence of adversely affected businesses may be an underestimate if businesses have typically not responded because they have been adversely affected by COVID-19.

The collection was conducted through a telephone based business survey between 12 August and 19 August 2020.

There are conceptual differences in the information related to capital expenditure collected in the Business Impacts of COVID-19 Survey and the ABS Survey of New Capital Expenditure (Cat. No. 5625.0).

Key differences are summarised in the table below.