Jobs in Australia methodology

Each person file contains data for all persons who either submitted an ITR or who were identifiable on a payment summary in the reference year. Each record includes de-identified demographic and geographic data, and aggregate income information.

Employed persons may be either employees (including owner-managers of incorporated enterprises or OMIEs), OMUEs, or both. Employees are identified by the presence of aggregate employee income and at least one linked employee job.

Employees who have not submitted an ITR but who have provided their Tax File Number to their employer are imputed from PAYG payment summary data.

OMUEs are identified by the presence of any of the own unincorporated business income types and a linked OMUE job.

Tax lodgers who are not employees or owner-managers are included on the person file to support statistical analysis that requires a more complete view of the tax lodger population.

In the LEED, an employer is any legal entity in the non-profiled population that is linked to a job; and any type of activity unit in the profiled population that is linked to a job.

The business file contains business units present in BLADE that could be linked to a job, as well as unincorporated entities. Some unincorporated entities are identified in personal income tax data and are not otherwise included in BLADE or cannot be identified in BLADE. Industry and several other employer variables are not available for these unincorporated entities, except for the ones in 2017-18 or later year data who reported industry information in their ITR.

The jobs file is a complete list of the job relationships held at any time during the reference year.

The jobs file is constructed primarily from PAYG payment summary data. PAYG payment summaries describe the payments made to an individual by an employer within a financial year. Conceptually, payment summary data should include most employee/employer job relationships. OMUE jobs are derived from ITR data and added to the jobs file, some of these link to businesses in BLADE.

In some cases, a synthetic employee job record has been created based on information in the person file. This has occurred when a person has recorded wage or salary information that cannot be identified in payment summary data. In some cases, an employee job may not be able to be linked to an employing organisation due to reporting errors or missing information. 

A person can hold several jobs during the year, either concurrently (as a multiple job-holder) or consecutively. For a person who is an employee of several employers, each relationship is listed as a separate job. Due to data limitations, only one self-employment job can be recorded for any OMUE even if a person owns and manages more than one enterprise. In the LEED an OMUE can hold other jobs as an employee. 

PAYG payment summary start and end dates are used to determine the start and end of a job relationship, to identify concurrent job-holding, and to determine the duration of the job. These dates are known to have high measurement error rates, which are likely to inflate job and concurrent job counts. Some of this error may be due to misinterpretation and recording errors, but it is also expected that payroll system and report design have an influence.

Some treatments have been applied to address over counts of jobs or concurrent job-holding, including: 

• In cases where a person has received several PAYG payment summaries from the same employer, and the time between the end of the first payment summary and the start of the next payment summary is 31 days or less, this is counted as a single job.
• In cases where a person has received several PAYG payment summaries from different employers, they are only considered to be concurrent if they overlap by more than 31 days.
• In cases where a person has more than 10 jobs, those within the same industry sub-division (2-digit ANZSIC industry) are counted as a single job in the 2011-12 to 2016-17 data. From the 2017-18 reference year, a lower level of industry classification - those within the same industry class (4-digit ANZSIC industry), was used to collapse jobs. This change has improved data quality, but has brought in a negligible increase to the number of total jobs reported compared with reported numbers in the old approach. 

These treatments are aimed at minimising the impact of administrative errors while also reflecting a reasonably accurate view of differing job structures.

Data on multiple job holders can also be found in the Labour Account Australia, however there are a number of differences between the two sources. For a full description of these differences, see Multiple Job Holders.

The LEED jobs file excludes voluntary jobs and unpaid contributing family worker jobs.

Adjusted employee income per job is a supplementary view of income per job that accounts for the length of time an employee job was held. Because many jobs are held for less than the entire financial year, per job employee income is low relative to employee income. Adjusted employee income per job is designed to partially correct this by emulating an 'annual salary' for each job.

For example, an employee who earns $50,000 per year but changes jobs half way through the year may have an employee income of $50,000 but a per job employee income of $25,000 (for both jobs, assuming they are identical). Their Adjusted employee income per job will be $50,000, which is the assumed amount each job would have paid, should the employee have held it for the entire year.

Adjusted employee income per job is calculated by dividing regular payments received on a per job basis by the number of days the job was held. Regular payments include the following items on an individual non-business payment summary:

• 'gross payments',
• 'total allowances',
• 'reportable fringe benefits amount', and
• 'reportable employer superannuation contributions'.

This figure is then multiplied by the number of days in the reference year. Irregular payments ('lump sum A and B') are then added to this figure.

Adjusted employee income per job is available for employee jobs only. It is not calculated for jobs held for only 1 day or for any jobs for which duration of job cannot be calculated.

In this release, employment income is defined as a component of personal income to conceptually follow Standards for Income Variables. These standards are based on the international standards agreed by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians and are included in the Canberra Group Handbook on Household Income Statistics, Second Edition (2011).

Employment income estimates in this release have some limitations as a result of using administrative data. A more complete and conceptually accurate view of personal income from all sources is published in Household Income and Wealth, Australia.

All geographic variables are based on a person’s home address as reported on their ITR form. Addresses are coded to the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

In this release, the names and boundaries of all states and territories, GCCSAs, SA4s, SA3s, and SA2s are based on or concorded to the 2016 edition of ASGS: Main Structure and Greater Capital City Statistical Areas; those of all LGAs are based on the 2020 edition of ASGS: Non ABS Structures.

If a geography variable is missing on the ITR, if possible, it is imputed from the individual's most recent PAYG payment summary.

Details of jobs from regions unknown (not stated or indeterminate) or reported by lodgers living overseas are included in the totals shown. Jobs in Other territories are not published separately but included in the national totals. Therefore, the totals in each table may not necessarily be the sum of their components.

For employers in the non-profiled population, industry information in LEED is based on information provided by the registrant to the Australian Business Register. This is usually completed at the time of registration and may not be updated.

For employers in the profiled population, industry is based on information collected by the ABS. Industry is determined through the profiling process for each major activity in which a business operates and is recorded at the type of activity level. Profiling information is back and forward-cast in BLADE, and this impacts on the industry information in this release, however, industry data for previous financial years in LEED has not been revised.

In this release, the main job held by a person is the job in which they received the highest employment income. This differs from ABS household surveys, which define a person's main job as the job in which the most hours are usually worked.  

Multiple job holders are persons who have two or more concurrent jobs at any point during the financial year. Due to data limitations, concurrency cannot be determined for self-employment jobs and they have been excluded from concurrent job counts. 

The tendency for employees who leave a job during the year to be retained in pay systems until the end of the financial year results in some jobs being incorrectly identified as concurrent.

Occupation in main job is recorded for each employee in reference to their main job only. This is reported by an employee or their tax agent in relation to the occupation of the job with the highest wage or salary. The ATO reported occupations according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations, 2013 (ANZSCO) with some minor exceptions. Supplementary coding used by the ATO is subsequently concorded to ANZSCO by the ABS. Occupation in main job cannot be determined for a person who is only employed as an OMUE. In cases where the person’s main job is as an OMUE but where they have one or more secondary employee jobs, occupation will refer to the main employee job. 

Any person with one or more job at any point during the year is considered to be an employed person. 

An employee is an employed person who holds a job with a public or private employer and receives remuneration in wages, salary, on a commission basis (with or without a retainer), tips, piece rates, or payment in kind. Employees in this release are identified through the receipt of any of these types of payments as recorded on an ITR or on a PAYG payment summary.

OMIEs have not been identified separately to employees and so are included in employee counts.

Attributed personal services income is also counted as employee income, however data limitations mean that employer relationships for employees with this type of income are not able to be established.

OMUEs are identified through ITRs, where a person has recorded business or personal services income (other than attributed personal services income). Where the person has recorded the ABN of their unincorporated enterprise, this may be able to be linked to a BLADE record. In cases where no BLADE record is identified, an employer record is created from the information on the ITR. These records contain limited information. 

Two data quality enhancement processes were introduced in processing the ITR data from the 2017-18 reference period. The first one identifies ABNs of unincorporated enterprises from the Business Income Tax (BIT) data by matching business name information from ITR and BIT. This leads to improved linkage between ITR and BLADE and hence better business and industry information for OMUEs. The second process directly sources industry information for OMUE income earners from their ITR records, which greatly improved the quality of industry information for this group. Due to substantial quality improvement of industry information for OMUEs in later years, any comparison of OMUEs across time by industry should be conducted with caution. 

Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages (WPJW) presents payroll job and wage estimates, indexed to the week ending 14 March 2020. It provides measures for changes in payroll jobs at both the national level and for regions.

WPJW is compiled from administrative data - payroll information provided to the ATO by businesses with Single Touch Payroll (STP) enabled payroll and accounting software. The WPJW release covers all payroll jobs reported via STP and excludes OMUEs who do not pay themselves a wage or salary. Jobs in Australia has more complete coverage than WPJW for the following types of jobs:

• Jobs with no PAYG payment summary issued but included in the ITR;
• Jobs with a PAYG payment summary issued, but the employer for which was not reporting through STP; and
• OMUEs.

Labour Force Australia provides ABS’s monthly headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked. Estimates are available at the national, state and territory, and Statistical Area 4 levels, but not to lower geographical level. Labour Force Australia is compiled from the monthly Labour Force Survey. The key statistics measured are persons rather than jobs. Employed persons in Labour Force Australia has a broader scope than in Jobs in Australia, including not only employees and OMUEs, but also contributing family workers.

Labour Account Australia provides quarterly and annual time series data, consisting of four quadrants: Jobs, Persons, Hours and Payments. The estimates are at the national level. Statistics in Labour Account Australia are sourced from business and household surveys, ABS business register information, defence force information, child workers information and estimates from the ABS Labour Force Survey for contributing family workers.

The number of filled jobs in Labour account is a stock measure at a point-in-time each quarter (and annually for the financial year reference period). This is in comparison to number of filled jobs being a flow measure in Jobs in Australia. The Labour Account framework covers all types of employment including employees, OMUEs and contributing family workers.

A supplementary view of income per job that accounts for the length of time an employee job was held. Duration adjusted income divides regular payments by the number of days the job was held, and then multiplies this figure by the number of days in the reference year.

Age of employed person as at 30 June of the reference year.

A register of all Australian businesses and organisations maintained by the ABS for the purpose of producing statistical frames and business demography outputs. It contains identifying and classificatory data for each business and organisation.

Information to populate the ABS Business Register is largely sourced from the Australian Business Register.

The ABS Business Register consists of two subpopulations, the profiled population and the non-profiled population. The ABS Business Register uses an economic units model to describe the characteristics of businesses and the structural relationships between related businesses.

A unique identifier. To be entitled to an Australian Business Number (ABN), an organisation must be one or more of the following:

• a company registered under the Corporations Act 2001
• an entity carrying on an enterprise in Australia
• a government entity
• a non-profit sub-entity for Goods and Services Tax purposes
• a superannuation fund.

A non-resident entity may be entitled to an ABN if they are carrying on an enterprise in Australia and/or, in the course of carrying on an enterprise, the entity makes sales that are connected with Australia.

The data store containing details about businesses and organisations that have registered for an Australian Business Number. More information can be found on the ABR website.

In these data, Australian citizen refers to persons who arrived to live in Australia on a permanent or temporary visa and have since obtained Australian citizenship. 

Bridging visas are a temporary visa granted to permit the visa holder to stay, leave and return, make arrangements for a substantive visa or finalise immigration matters or decisions when their current substantive visa is ceasing or has ceased, and their substantive visa application or immigration decision is being processed.

Combines business tax data and information from ABS surveys with data about the use of government programs. Business Longitudinal Analytical Data Environment (BLADE) contains data on all active businesses from 2001-02, sourced from:

• Department of Industry, Innovation and Science programs
• The Australian Taxation Office
• Intellectual Property Government Open Data, produced by IP Australia
• ABS surveys, including the Business Characteristics Survey, Economic Activity Survey and the Survey of Research and Experimental Development.

A job that has an overlap with another job held by the same person of more than 31 days.

Persons who work without pay in an economic enterprise operated by a relative. Contributing family worker jobs are not included in this release.

The country of which a person holds or held citizenship.

See adjusted employee income per job.

The number of days a job was held during the financial year. This is calculated by subtracting the start date of a job from the end date. 

Any person with one or more paid job. Employed persons in this release can be employees, owner managers of unincorporated enterprises, or both. Employed persons are persons who have employment income in the reference year, excluding those whose employment income is made up entirely of an employment termination payment.

Persons who work for an employer and receive pay in the reference period in the form of wages or salaries, a commission while also receiving a retainer, tips, piece rates or payments in kind. In this release, persons who operated their own incorporated enterprises are also included as employees.

Employee income received in relation to each job held in the financial year. In this release employee income is limited to income types that are conceptually consistent with the definition of employee income described in Standards for Income Variables, and are available in the underlying dataset. 

A job for which the occupant receives remuneration in wages, salary, payment in kind, or piece rates. This excludes self-employment jobs held by owner mangers of unincorporated enterprises.

An organisation with an Australian Business Number that provides employment income to one or more people.

Part of the Linked Employer Employee Dataset, which lists all the employer level information. 

Employment income received in the financial year. Includes employee income and own unincorporated business income. In this release employment income is limited to income types that are conceptually consistent with the definition of employment income described in Standards for Income Variables, and are available in the underlying dataset. 

Employment income received in relation to each job in the financial year. 

Employment income received by employed persons in the financial year, from all jobs worked during that year. 

The closing stock headcount derived from business activity statements, as presented in the Business Longitudinal Analytical Data Environment. 

Employing businesses and organisations are categorised as having:

• 4 or fewer employees
• 5-19 employees
• 20-199 employees
• 200+ employees

The employment sizes are not actual counts of linked employed persons in the underlying data, and cannot be compared to these counts. This is because the number of linked employed persons in the underlying data is a measure for the entire reference year, and not the closing stock. 

See start and end dates

A statistical unit that includes all the Australian operations of one or more legal entities under common ownership and/or control. Multiple legal entities can operate within a single enterprise group, and each enterprise group is broken up into one or more types of activity units.

This group includes persons who have arrived in Australia on a Child, Partner, Parent or Other Family stream visa. These migrants are selected based on their family relationship (spouse, de facto partner, intent to marry, child, parent, other family) with their sponsor who is an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or eligible New Zealand Citizen.

The job with the highest employment income that is held concurrently with another job (see second concurrent job). The first concurrent job may also be the main job.

All geographic variables are based on a person's home address as reported on their Income Tax Return form. Addresses are coded to the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (GCCSAs) are designed to represent the functional extent of each of the eight State and Territory capital cities. They include the people who regularly socialise, shop or work within the city, but live in the small towns and rural areas surrounding the city. GCCSAs are not bound by a minimum population size criterion. GCCSAs are built from SA4s.

This group includes permanent entrants under the Humanitarian Program. For more information about this program, see Resettle in Australia (homeaffairs.gov.au).

The annual tax return submitted by individuals to the Australian Taxation Office.

A homogenous grouping of economic activities undertaken to produce goods and services. The Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification, 2006 is used to classify an entity to an industry based on its dominant activity.

The broadest grouping of industries within the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification. The main purpose of the industry division level is to provide a limited number of categories, which give a broad overall picture of the economy. There are 19 mutually exclusive divisions.

The second broadest grouping of industries within the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification. Industry subdivisions are built up from industry groups which, in turn, are built up from industry classes. 

Institutional sector of each employing business aligns with the Standard Institutional Sector Classification of Australia outlined in Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia.

A relationship between an employed person and their employing enterprise. This can be a relationship between an employee and an employer (an employee job) or between an owner manager of an unincorporated enterprise and their own enterprise (a self-employment job).

Part of the Linked Employer Employee Dataset, which lists all jobs identified in the reference year.

The Labour Force, also referred to as the current economically active population, is the aggregate of employed and unemployed persons. This gives a measure of the number of people contributing to, or actively looking and immediately available for, the supply of labour at a point in time.

A unit in the ABS economic units model, and usually relates to an ABN.

In this release, the legal entity is used to represent employers in the non-profiled population.

A Linked Employer Employee Dataset (LEED) is any dataset that integrates information about employers and their employees. The LEED used to compile this release includes cross-sectional employer, person and job files that integrate personal income tax data with employer information from the Business Longitudinal Analytical Data Environment.

The 'main applicant' or 'primary applicant' is generally the person whose skills or proposed activities in Australia are assessed by the Department of Home Affairs as part of their visa application. They will usually have been specifically identified on the application form as the 'main applicant'.

The main source of employment income for an employed person. An employed person can only have one main job.

The highest number of jobs held by a person at any one point in time. It may be different to the total jobs held during the reference year.

A mid-point measure of the employment income received as a result of a single job.

A mid-point measure of the sum of employment income received as a result of all jobs held by a person.

An employee with two or more concurrent employee jobs at any point during the financial year (see first concurrent job and second concurrent job). Owner manager of unincorporated enterprise jobs are excluded due to the inability to determine the start and end dates of these jobs.

The non-profiled population is one of the two employer populations referenced in this release. Businesses and organisations in the non-profiled population have simple structures and the Australian Business Number (ABN) unit is suitable for statistical purposes. 

Statistic is not able to be published. This can be to protect the confidentiality of data providers or to prevent misinterpretation of statistics due to poor quality.

A collection of jobs that are sufficiently similar in their title and tasks, skill level and skill specialisation, which are grouped together for the purposes of classification. Occupation refers to Major Group as defined by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations, 2013 of the job which the employed person identifies as their main wage or salary job.

Includes all other permanent visa categories (not included in the Skilled, Family or Humanitarian streams) or where the type of permanent visa could not be determined.

Includes all other temporary visa subclasses not included in the Special Category (New Zealand citizen) (subclass 444), Student, Temporary Work (Skilled) and Working Holiday Makers categories.

People who work in their own incorporated enterprise, which is a business entity registered as a separate legal entity to its members or owners (may also be known as a limited liability company). OMIEs are included in counts of employees.

Incorporated enterprises are further defined in the Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia.

A person who operates their own unincorporated enterprise, which does not possess a separate legal identity to that of its owner(s), or engages independently in a profession or trade.

OMUEs can also be referred to as self-employed. The employed population is made up of OMUEs and employees (including owner managers of incorporated enterprises).

Unincorporated enterprises are further defined in the Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia.

Income from self-employment received in the financial year. In this release own unincorporated business income is limited to income types that are conceptually consistent with the definition of own unincorporated business income described in Standards for Income Variables, and are available in the underlying dataset. 

The annual summary provided by an employer to the Australian Taxation Office with respect to an employee, as part of the Pay As You Go taxation system. It records job level information reported by employers about the payments made to an employee, tax withheld, and the start and end dates for each job.

A person who was born overseas, was not an Australian citizen or New Zealand citizen on arrival, does not currently hold New Zealand citizenship, and has permanent Australian resident status.

The permission or authority granted by Australia for foreign nationals to live in Australia permanently.

Part of the Linked Employer Employee Dataset, which lists all persons who submitted a tax return or who were provided with an individual non-business payment summary in relation to the reference year.

The profiled population is one of the two employer populations. Businesses and organisations in the profiled population have large, complex structures that are not suitable for statistical purposes at the Australian Business Number level. These organisations include one or more legal entity that form an enterprise group. The enterprise group is divided up into types of activity unit which form the unit of analysis in the profiled population.

The job with the highest employment income that is held concurrently with the first concurrent job. Other concurrent jobs not held simultaneously with the first concurrent job may have higher employment income.

A person whose visa was granted on the basis of being a family member (e.g., spouse, dependent child) of a person who qualified for a visa. They will have been identified on the visa application as an 'other' or secondary applicant with the person who met the visa criteria being specifically identified on the visa application as the 'main applicant'.

Any job held by an employed person, other than their main job. A person can have multiple secondary jobs.

A job that is held by an owner manager of an unincorporated enterprise as a result of the relationship between the owner manager and their own enterprise. Due to data limitations a person can only hold one self-employment job.

The self reported sex of a person as recorded by the Australian Tax Office. Binary coding to female and not female is undertaken for privacy and confidentiality purposes.

This stream consists of several categories for prospective migrants where there is demand in Australia for their particular skills. They could be nominated by an employer or State/Territory Government, apply under points based Skilled Migration, have outstanding talents or demonstrated business skills. For more information about this program, see Skilled migration program (homeaffairs.gov.au).

Special Category permits New Zealand citizens to visit, study, stay and work in Australia. Special Category visas are granted on arrival in Australia and cease when the visa holder departs Australia.

Start and end dates associated with each job as reported on individual payments summaries. These are in reference to the financial year only and do not necessarily reflect when a job was actually started or ended. For example, a job with a start date of 01 July 2015 may have been held before this date and a job with an end date of 30 June 2016 may be held after this date.

The smallest geographical region used in the Jobs in Australia release. Statistical Area level 2 (SA2s) regions aim to represent a community that interacts together socially and economically. They are generally designed to be within the population range 3,000 to 25,000 persons, and on average have a population of approximately 10,000 persons.

Geographical areas built from whole SA2s, which are designed for statistical output purposes and to provide a regional breakdown of Australia. Statistical Area level 3 (SA3s) regions create a standard framework for the analysis of ABS data at the regional level that have similar regional characteristics, administrative boundaries or labour markets. SA3s generally have populations between 30,000 and 130,000 persons.

Geographical areas built from whole SA3s, Statistical Area level 4 (SA4) regions are specifically designed to reflect labour markets within each state and territory within population limits. In regional areas, SA4s tend to have lower populations (100,000 to 300,000), while in metropolitan areas, SA4s tend to have larger populations (300,000 to 500,000).

These are overseas students who undertake full-time study in a recognised educational institution. Students can apply to have partners and dependent children under the age of eighteen accompany them to Australia. These family members are known as secondary visa holders and are counted in student visa numbers.

Temporary Work (Skilled) visa holders permitted to travel to Australia to work in their nominated occupation for their approved sponsor for up to four years.

The permission or authority granted by Australia for foreign nationals to live in Australia temporarily.

The total number of jobs held by a person during the financial year. This includes jobs that were held concurrently and those that were not.

The statistical unit for more significant and diverse businesses in the profiled population. A type of activity unit (TAU) is a constructed unit that can practically group and report on homogenous production activities at the industry sub-division level.

The TAU is used to represent employers in the profiled population.

All legal entities on the ABS Business Register are classified according to their type of legal organisation, of which there are three types:

• Incorporated private sector entities
• Unincorporated private sector entities
• Public sector entities.

The type of legal organisation indicates whether a business is part of the private or public sector and the type of ownership structure.

The permanent visa subclasses held by individuals are categorised into the following visa streams.

• Skilled stream
• Family stream
• Humanitarian stream
• Other and Undetermined permanent visa stream

The temporary visa subclasses held by individuals are categorised into the following visa streams.

• Skilled stream
• Student stream
• Special Category stream
• Working Holiday Makers
• Other Temporary visa stream

Permits young adults from countries with reciprocal bilateral arrangements (with Australia) to undertake short term work or study while holidaying in Australia.