Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables

This publication contains the supply-use tables for 2020-21, 2019-20 and 2018-19. The data in this release is consistent with the 2021-22 release of the Australian System of National Accounts.

Supply-use tables are an integral and essential element of the ABS national accounts. They are the building blocks for the Australian System of National Accounts as they are used to balance GDP for all three approaches (production, expenditure and income) and provide the annual benchmarks (levels) from which the quarterly estimates are compiled. They provide detailed information about the supply and use of products in the Australian economy, and the structure of and interrelationships between Australian industries.

The supply-use time series from 1994-95 to 2020-21 are available through the Data Explorer website.

This graph illustrates the relative contribution to total Output of Australian Production by Total Intermediate Use (TIU) and Gross Value Added (GVA) components for 2020-21. The TIU to Output ratio for industries that primarily produce goods is typically different to that of industries that primarily provide services. Industries producing goods - Agriculture, Mining and Manufacturing – require relatively large amounts of material intermediate inputs, usually resulting in a higher TIU to Output ratio. For Mining, the ratio is more volatile due to the industry’s exposure to volatile commodity prices.

In contrast, service based industries such as Financial and Insurance Services, Education and Training, Health Care and Social Assistance have a much lower TIU to Output ratio as they rely more heavily on labour inputs.  For example, Education and Training, Health Care and Social Assistance have TIU to Output ratios of 30.7% and 31.7% respectively, both industries also have relatively high ratios of Compensation of Employees (COE) to TIU of 200.5% and 185.7% respectively when compared with a goods producing industry such as Manufacturing with a COE to TIU ratio of 22.9%.

The increase in Output for Agriculture in 2021-21 is driven by higher than average rainfall after a drought resulted in an increased crop harvest, with Output increasing by 15.4% and TIU increasing by 9.2% while the use of 'Fodder and grass’ fell by 29.5%.

TIU grew 22% for Forestry, Aquaculture, Fishing and Hunting. There was an increase in expenses associated with 'Machinery and equipment repair and maintenance services' of 24.9% and 'Other machinery and equipment' of 16.7%. The bushfires of 2019-20 impacted the forestry and logging industry, reducing the amount of timber available by 30.0%. TIU increased substantially due to rises in ‘Road freight transport services' of 14.6% and 'Services to forestry and fishing' of 24.5%.

Iron Ore is the largest contributor to Output, accounting for 45% of total Output which increased by 46.5% in 2020-21. This was driven by an increase in Iron Ore prices over the year, though production volumes remained steady. The TIU increase of 1.3% was primarily driven by 'Trade services repair and maintenance' and 'Services to mining'.

Coal mining contributes approximately 13% to Output and declined by 26.7% in the year as result of lower prices and export volumes. TIU decreased by a lesser extent of 5.2% as costs relating to the maintenance of machinery, equipment and freight continued.

Oil and gas extraction contributes 16% to total Output for mining and decreased by 26.1% in the year due to lower LNG prices and export volumes. Aviation fuel consumption remained low, due to on-going restrictions on domestic and international travel. TIU decreased by 9.1% as requirements for construction services, hiring of machinery, electricity, and financial services declined.

Accommodation Output declined by 7.6% and TIU decreased by 9.7% as businesses were impacted by the international/domestic border closures. The decline in Output was driven by Accommodation services and Meal preparation services which decreased by 6.8% and 6.9% respectively. TIU declined due to lower operating expenses namely in cleaning services, provision of food and alcohol, electricity and travel services.

Conversely, Food and beverage services Output increased by 5.4% and TIU increased by 3.3%. After periods of lockdown and restriction, Output rebounded back to almost pre-pandemic levels due to strong demand and price increases.

Road transport experienced lower demand for its services due to declines in personal services (such as taxis and ride share) which fell 37.8% due to travel restrictions at both national and state levels, this was somewhat offset by increased demand for freight services of 2.1%. Total Output decreased by 0.7% while TIU decreased by 7.2%. This can be attributed to the lower price of automotive petroleum and coal products which declined by 11.6%.

Air and space transport saw large declines in Output and TIU at 61.9% and 51.2% respectively. This was a result of decreases in domestic and international air passenger volumes from early 2020. Declines in Output are driven by a reduction in service income from air passenger transport correlating with reduced operating expenses for registration and access fees, repair and maintenance, legal and accounting fees.

Postal, courier-pickup and delivery services Output increased 30.8% and TIU increased by 45.4%. This was associated with a high level of online retail sales, ABS retail trade data shows online trade contributed to 10.5% of total retail trade in 2020-21. Retail Trade, Australia, June 2021 | Australian Bureau of Statistics (abs.gov.au)

Health care and social assistance Output increased by 10.7% and TIU increased by 16.9%.

Output increased across all health-related services with the largest contributors being Hospital and ambulance services and General practice services which increased 7.0% and 11.3% respectively.

Strength in TIU outpaced Output due to increased costs. For example, TIU for 'Medical aids, equipment and therapeutic appliances' increased 28.6% while 'Cleaning, pest control and gardening services ' and 'Waste collection, treatment and disposal services' increased by 19.3% and 18.6% respectively. Administrative costs relating to greater demand for employment services resulted in increase in 'Employment placement and recruitment services' of 15.5%.

Data downloads

This release of the Supply-Use tables contains the 2020-21 reference year and revised data for the 2019-20 and 2018-19 reference years. 

Historical Revisions

Statistical revisions are carried out regularly in the Australian National Accounts, to reflect the most current information and estimation methods. For the December, March and June quarter National Accounts releases, the ABS limit revisions to the most recent quarters only. Annually, the ABS will apply revisions to a longer time series of selected estimates, which is referred to as a “historical revision".  These revisions are first seen in the Annual National Accounts, and then in the September quarter release.  

Historical revisions are important for several reasons including improved data quality, to update classifications and to improve international comparability.

Historical revisions in the national accounts have traditionally been undertaken on an ad-hoc basis. This involved holding back individual historical revisions until a time where many changes were put through in bulk. From 2021, the ABS adopted a policy of implementing targeted annual historical revisions. This is to ensure that the national accounts use the most up to date data available which best captures changes in a dynamic economy and is more responsive to user needs. The ABS will advise users on planned historical revisions in advance of publication.

The Annual National Accounts Supply-Use introduce revisions for the three open years as part of the standard benchmarking process. As such, the impact of the historical revisions can be difficult to isolate for the ‘open’ three years. 

The 2022 round of revisions incorporates two major historical revision improvements:

Changed treatment of non-government schools - The ABS has reclassified non-government schools from non-market Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH) to market producers (market non-profit institutions) from the period 1984-85 to 2021-22. These changes were previously highlighted in the 2020-21 annual GFS publication. This change results in a reclassification of the treatment of government payments to non-government schools from household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) to government final consumption expenditure (GFCE), with minimal change to GDP. Household and general government net savings have remained relatively unchanged. 

Changes to education outputs - The ABS has aligned the value of output of non-government schools to data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). These estimates result in upwards revisions to the output and gross value added of Division P Education and Training, and increased HFCE in primary and secondary education services. The ABS has also incorporated improved volume estimates of output for primary, secondary, vocational, and higher education.

These historical revisions will also appear in the following upcoming economic releases:
Estimates of Industry Level KLEMS Multifactor Productivity – release date 15 November 2022
Australian National Accounts: State Accounts – release date 18 November 2022
Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product – release date 7 December 2022

For further information on the supply-use tables, 2020-21, please see the Methodology page.

For information on industry and product concordances, please see the Methodology page.

Help for: Data Explorer Datasets
Australian National Accounts: Supply Table 1994-95 to 2020-21
Australian National Accounts: Use Table 1994-95 to 2020-21
Australian National Accounts: Primary Inputs Table 1994-95 to 2020-21

This release previously used catalogue number 5217.0