End of financial year reporting
A greater variation in business reporting occurs around the end of the financial year, as businesses finalise their employee's earning information and the financial year is reset in payroll systems. This can result in a higher level of variation in payroll jobs and wages estimates and subsequent revisions during June and July.
Upcoming suspension of wages estimates
The variability in reporting around the end of financial year makes the production of high quality wages indexes difficult. To allow for more complete business reporting for July, wages estimates will be temporarily withdrawn in the next release. This follows the approach the ABS took in 2021. Wages estimates up to the week ending 13 August 2022 will be reinstated in the 8 September 2022 release.
Update of adjustment method
The ABS has reviewed and updated the aggregate adjustment method used to account for large organisation onboarding, resulting in higher than usual revisions across the time series. These revisions are greater in 2021 and 2022 and impact component indexes differently. The updated method reduces impacts on the underlying characteristics distributions, particularly after the onboarding event, and are a step toward the future release of levels.
The ABS recommends that analyses of previously published estimates be refreshed with updated data from this release.