Business Indicators, Australia

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Quarterly estimates of private sector sales, wages, profits and inventories

Reference period
December 2021
Released
28/02/2022

Key statistics

Current price estimates for the December quarter 2021:

  • Company gross operating profits rose 2.0% seasonally adjusted 
  • Wages and salaries rose 1.9% seasonally adjusted 

Chain volume estimates for the December quarter 2021:

  • Inventories rose 1.1% seasonally adjusted
 Sep Qtr 21 to Dec Qtr 21Dec Qtr 20 to Dec Qtr 21
%%
Sales of goods and services (Chain volume measures)  
 Manufacturing  
  Trend

na

na

  Seasonally Adjusted

0.8

1.6

 Wholesale trade  
  Trend

na

na

  Seasonally Adjusted

4.6

2.2

Inventories (Chain volume measures)  
 Trend

na

na

 Seasonally Adjusted

1.1

2.2

Company gross operating profits  
 Trend

na

na

 Seasonally Adjusted

2.0

13.0

Wages and salaries  
 Seasonally Adjusted

1.9

5.5

*na - not available. Trend estimates have been suspended due to the impacts of COVID-19

 

Inventories

Trend estimates have been suspended

 

Company gross operating profits

Trend estimates have been suspended

Notes on release

Comparison between company gross operating profits and gross operating surplus

Valuation changes have had an impact on the value of inventories held by Australian businesses this quarter. An Inventories Valuation Adjustment (IVA) is applied in the calculation of the Gross Operating Surplus of private non-financial corporations (GOS) estimate in the Australian National Accounts. The IVA for the December quarter 2021 is $4,002m which is $678m lower than the September quarter 2021 IVA of $4,680m.

No adjustment is made to the Company Gross Operating Profits (CGOP) estimate in this publication and, as a result, users should exercise caution when comparing CGOP and GOS. It should be noted that there are other differences between the two series. In particular, changes are made to GOS when annual benchmarks are applied and slightly different seasonal factors apply to the two series. Given this, while CGOP movements are an appropriate indicator for GOS, the two series will not have equivalent seasonally adjusted movements from quarter to quarter.

Impact of government subsidies on CGOP

For the December quarter 2021 Business Indicators release, estimates of Company Gross Operating Profits have once again included the receipt of COVID-19 related government subsidies as income in the compilation of CGOP, as previously seen from the June quarter 2020 onwards. These government subsidies include stimulus packages provided by both state and federal levels of government.

Suspension of trend series

The trend series attempts to measure underlying behaviour in business activity. In the short term, this measurement will be significantly affected by changes to regular patterns in spending that will occur during this time, as certain businesses are restricted from trading for example. If the trend estimates in this publication were to be calculated without fully accounting for this irregular event, they would likely provide a misleading view of underlying business activity.

It may be some time before the underlying trend in business activity can be accurately estimated. The Business Indicators trend series have therefore been suspended and will be reinstated when more certainty emerges in the underlying trend in business activity.

Analysis by industry

​​​​​​​Featured series

The following graphs and commentary refer to seasonally adjusted estimates for sales of goods and services and inventories in volume terms, and wages and salaries and company gross operating profits in current price terms. Trend estimates have been suspended from June quarter 2019 onwards for all series due to the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Total all industries

Mining

Manufacturing

Electricity, gas, water and waste services

Construction

Wholesale trade

Retail trade

Accommodation and food services

Transport, postal and warehousing

Information media and telecommunications

Financial and insurance services

Rental, hiring and real estate services

Professional, scientific and technical services

Administrative and support services

Education and training

Health care and social assistance

Arts and recreation services

Other services

Data downloads

Please note, the ABS has transitioned to releasing Excel files in .XLSX format from 3 December 2021.

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

Caution: Data in Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the reference period when using Data Explorer.

Business Indicators  - Quarterly estimates of private sector sales, wages, profits and inventories

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5676.0.

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