Using TableBuilder

General information and instructions for the TableBuilder product are available in the TableBuilder User Guide (cat. no. 1406.0.55.005).

Information specific to the Jobs in Australia TableBuilder is outlined below to assist in the understanding, interpretation and tabulation of the data. Further information is available in the publication Jobs in Australia (cat. no. 6160.0).

Confidentiality features

Confidentiality processes protect information that could potentially identify specific employees, employers or jobs. These processes are implemented to all TableBuilder data in accordance with the Census and Statistics Act 1905. All personal information is handled in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988.

The following processes used to confidentialise records:

1. De-identification
2. Peturbation
3. Suppression

De-identification

All personal income tax statistics were provided in de-identified form with no home address or date of birth. Addresses were coded to the Australian Statistical Geography Standard and date of birth was converted to an age at 30 June of the reference year prior to data provision.

Perturbation

Perturbation refers to the technique used to randomly adjust cell values, which minimises the risk of identifying individuals in aggregate statistics. Perturbation involves small random adjustments of statistics and is considered the best technique to protect identifiable statistics while maximising the range of releasable information. These adjustments have a negligible impact on the underlying pattern of the statistics.

After perturbation, a given published cell value will be consistent across all tables. However, adding up cell values to derive a total will not necessarily give the same result as published totals. The size of differences between summed cells and the relevant total will generally be very small.

Effects of perturbing data may result in components being larger than their totals, including determining proportions.

When perturbation occurs the following information messages will be displayed at the bottom of the table:



Suppression

Suppression refers to the technique of removing low values within cells to preserve confidentiality. If tables generated within TableBuilder produce very low counts, all values within the table are suppressed to reduce the risk of identifying individuals.

When table suppression occurs a red exclamation mark will appear next to the table title and the following error messages will be displayed at the bottom of the table:




Data items for cross-tabulation

The Jobs in Australia TableBuilder contains person and job level data to produce employment and income statistics. When adding data items to a table, it is important to select the associated population to produce the correct tabulation. A table with multiple data items should all be applicable to the same population group.

Cross-tabulating data from the Person level with other data items from the same level will produce data about people. For example, cross-tabulating the geographic variable Statistical Area by the Broad industry of main job produces a table showing the number of people in each region by the industry division of their main job.

Important microdata considerations

High job counts

The Jobs in Australia TableBuilder describes all job relationships accumulated over the course of a year. A person can have a number of jobs throughout the year, and some jobs will be held concurrently with others.

This means the job counts in this product are higher than estimates of filled jobs published in the quarterly Australian Labour Account, which provides a point-in-time, or stock measure. These statistics about jobs also differ from Labour Force Survey statistics, which estimate the number of people who held a job in each month.

Low median income values

Median employment income per job is based on all filled jobs through the reference year. This includes jobs of short duration, such as jobs worked over the holiday period and seasonal agricultural jobs. The data also cannot differentiate part-time and full-time jobs. This means the median employment income per job in this product is quite low when compared to other employment income information.

Duration adjusted income

The adjusted employee income per job is a supplementary view of income per job that accounts for the length of time an employee job was held. Duration adjusted income divides regular payments by the number of days the job was held, and then multiplies this figure by the number of days in the reference year. Jobs held for 1 day are excluded, as are any jobs where duration of job can not be calculated.

Clarification of 'Multiple Job Holder Status' and 'Job Number'

Multiple job holder status refers to people who held concurrent jobs (with an overlap of at least 31 days) at some point in the reference year. People with a job number count greater than one, held more than one job in the reference year, but not necessarily concurrently. For example, an individual who worked two different jobs in a financial year, but only held one job at a time, would have two jobs under job number but not have multiple job holder status.

Field Exclusion Rules

Field Exclusion Rules were applied to the Jobs in Australia TableBuilder to protect identifiable information. These rules prevent the combination of specific variables, like accessing both geography and industry at fine levels in the same table. Where geography other than Australia is requested, users will only be able to select broad industry division for cross-classification and will not be able to select fine level industry (subdivision, group, or class).

The following variable combinations are prohibited:

• Industry at fine levels with Geography smaller than Australia
• Industry with Standard Institutional Sector Classification of Australia, Type of Legal Organisation or employment size.

If Field Exclusion Rules are breached the following information messages will be displayed at the top of the table:



Industry variables

Industry is divided into two variables, Broad industry and Fine industry, to allow the broadest range of analysis while protecting private information. These variables can not be combined with each other, as they present the same information, or with the other variables outline in Field Exclusion Rules.

Tabulation guidance

Select the Jobs in Australia, 2011-12 to 2016-17 dataset from the Labour Force category:



Predefined tables are available to demonstrate tabulation and can be modified as required.

Selecting a new table enables you to choose specific data items and build a customised table. Opening a new table will provide a blank table with all reference years selected as columns by default:



Selected years can be removed using the Reference year variable:



At least one year must be enabled to generate a table, for example:



Next step is to further define the required table by applying variables to rows and columns. Filters can be applied to only display data for specific variables, while wafers will enable the data to be displayed in multiple layers of a table. Ensure the correct population is selected and data items are applicable to the same level, for example Person level Sex of person and Statistical area by state:



Click 'Retrieve Data' to populated table:



Please note: Due to the size of this highly detailed dataset and depending on the complexity of selected tables, tabulation may take several minutes.

The TableBuilder User Guide (cat. no. 1406.0.55.005) provides detailed instructions on how to Build a table, Working with tables and all other aspects of using the TableBuilder product.