6311.0 - Information Paper: Construction of Experimental Statistics on Employee Earnings and Jobs from Administrative Data, Australia, 2011-12  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 11/12/2015  First Issue
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All
MEDIA RELEASE
11 December 2015
Embargoed: 11.30 am (Canberra time)
144/2015

ABS releases new information on employee earnings and jobs

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released new experimental information on employee earnings and jobs, including data on multiple job holders.

This is the first time that the ABS has integrated the Australian Taxation Office's Personal Income Tax data and the ABS' Expanded Analytical Business Longitudinal Database (integrated business data) to produce linked employer-employee data. This, in turn, is an important first step towards a future ABS Linked Employer-Employee Database (LEED) which will contain data linked across multiple years. The ultimate long-term goal is to enhance analysis on productivity, changes in employment by industry, the ability for people displaced from work to regain employment and other important Australian labour market issues, although this will take time and further investment.

"This release demonstrates the ABS' commitment to innovate and deliver new information on the Australian labour market using administrative data," said Ms Jennifer Humphrys, Director of Labour Market Statistics, at the ABS.

"Through integrating employer and employee data, we are able to measure for the first time that 1.9 million employees were multiple job holders (individuals with two or more concurrent jobs) in 2011-12."

The data also presents additional statistics on employees and earnings including that there were 10.3 million employees in 2011-12. The median earnings of these employees were $45,869 and the mean earnings were $55,678.

"The experimental statistics are broadly coherent with existing ABS information, and demonstrate the utility of a future ABS LEED for statistical outputs," said Ms Humphrys.

The Information Paper: Construction of Experimental Statistics on Employee Earnings and Jobs from Administrative Data, Australia 2011-12 (cat. no. 6311.0) presents new statistics on employee earnings and jobs within the Australian labour market for the 2011-12 financial year. A datacube of the aggregate experimental statistics on employee earnings and jobs is available in the Downloads tab of the release.

Further information including details on the sources and methodology can be found in the information paper available for free download from today.

Media note:
    • Please ensure when reporting on ABS data that you attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
    • For media requests and interviews, contact the ABS Communications Section on 1300 175 070.