Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW
The quarterly Survey of Employment and Earnings (SEE) measures the gross earnings of employed wage and salary earners in the public sector only. Prior to the March 2002 collection, earnings of employees in private sector businesses were also included in the survey (excluding those employed in private agriculture). SEE collects employment and earnings data from a sample of businesses taken from the ABS Business Register. The data, in conjunction with data from Business Indicators, Australia (ABS Cat. No 5676.0) is used to estimate the gross earnings of, and the number of, employed wage and salary earners in Australia. This is a key input into the calculation of GDP(I). These estimates are classified by sector (public sector further split by institutional sector and level of government), state or territory, full-time/part-time status (prior to March quarter 2002) and industry.

Originally, estimates were calculated in the Civilian Employees series using data from the payroll tax system. In 1981, a review of this series found that, because of significant and frequent increases to payroll tax exemption limits and the fact that the exemption limits varied between States, the series could no longer provide satisfactory data. The methodology for the Survey of Employment and Earnings was thus developed.

PURPOSE
Results from the survey are used to estimate key measures of employment and gross domestic product. Preliminary SEE data is provided to ABS National Accounts Branch.
The final results are also used by Commonwealth and State government departments, employer associations, and trade unions in developing and reviewing wages and labour market policies.

SCOPE
All public sector wage and salary earners who received pay for the reference period ending within the quarter are represented in the survey, except:

• members of the Australian permanent defence forces;
• employees of overseas embassies, consulates, etc.;
• employees based outside Australia; and
• employees on workers' compensation who are not paid through the payroll.

• irregular casual employees who did not receive pay for the reference period;
• employees on strike, or stood down who did not receive pay for the reference period;
• employees on leave without pay who did not receive pay for the reference period;
• directors or office holders who are not paid a salary;
• self-employed persons such as subcontractors, owner/drivers, consultants; and
• persons paid solely by commission without a retainer.

Conceptual framework
Not applicable

Main outputs
For public sector employees only from March quarter 2002 (private sector also covered prior to that date):

• Employees: number by state or territory, by industry, by sector, level of government and by full-time/part-time status (prior to March quarter 2002 for full-time/part-time status). Employees by employer size is also published.
• Earnings: gross by state or territory, by industry, by sector (private sector data only availabale prior to March quarter 2002) and by level of government.

Classifications
State

• Estimates are published at the state level.
• They are not available for any smaller geographical area.

• Estimates are published at the sector level (private/public) prior to March quarter 2002. from that time only public sector data are available. Public sector is split into level of government (Commonwealth, State and Local). These are further broken down into 'public trading enterprises', 'financial enterprises' and 'general government'. This breakdown is not published but is available as a special data service.

• Estimates are published at the ANZSIC division level (1 digit).
• Estimates are also available at the ANZSIC sub-division level (2 digit), with selected industries being available at a finer level subject to confidentiality restrictions.

• Estimates of employees are published for full-time and part-time employees.

• Estimates of employees and earnings are published for businesses employing 0-19, 20-99 and 100+ employees by State by Industry for the private sector. Other size ranges are available on request as a special data service.

Other concepts (summary)
Not applicable

GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
Australia
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Northern Territory
ACT

Comments and/or Other Regions
The largest geographical area covered is Australia. Estimates by State are available. Estimates for geographic areas below State level are not possible.
Business within the Jervis Bay territory and external territories {Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands} are out of scope of the survey.

COLLECTION FREQUENCY
Quarterly

Frequency comments
Not applicable

COLLECTION HISTORY
A sample survey of employers based on the existing ABS Business Register was introduced in September 1983. This new survey replaced the payroll tax based Civilian Employees series which was discontinued in April 1980 and the collection by the Government of employment and wages.

• 1997: Survey sample was redesigned towards the Australia New Zealand Standard Industry Code (ANZSIC). SEE publication was re-instated with backcast ANZSIC based estimates information.
  New stratification was undertaken at the Standard Institutional Sector Classification of Australia (SISCA) for the private sector to provide National Accounts Branch with required data.
• 2002: The private sector component of the survey was discontinued from March quarter 2002