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.
Microdata: Jobs and Income of Employed Persons
Information about the Jobs and Income of Employed Persons TableBuilder product, which is based on the Linked Employer-Employee Dataset
Accessing the data
This release provides information about the Jobs and Income of Employed Persons microdata product from the Linked Employer-Employee Database (LEED). This includes details on how to use the Jobs and Income of Employed Persons TableBuilder product and the quality of the microdata.
This release only contains data from the 2019-20 LEED, with data from previous years still available in the Jobs in Australia microdata product. Later this year, the data from 2011-12 onwards will also be released as single year files. This change will allow for faster processing of tables and the addition of new data for more recent years (e.g. the migrants data added in this release).
About the dataset
Jobs and Income of Employed Persons provides statistics from the LEED to enable simultaneous analysis of met supply and demand in the Australian labour market. The LEED is a cross-sectional database, which uses administrative tax data to incorporate information from all employees and employers in Australia. This creates a highly detailed dataset to support analysis of employment and income statistics for micro-labour markets.
The LEED includes person and employer level information provided by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Registrar of the Australian Business Register (ABR).
- Data is supplied under the Taxation Administration Act 1953, which requires that such data is only used for the purpose of administering the Census and Statistics Act 1905.
- ABR data is supplied under A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999, which requires that such data is only used for the purpose of carrying out functions of the ABS.
- The LEED uses this data via the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE), which combines ABS Business Register data, business tax data and information from ABS surveys with data about the use of government programs.
Information is confidentialised to ensure privacy and secrecy of the data, in accordance with legislative requirements. Confidentiality features are detailed in the Using TableBuilder section.
From 2019-20, data on migrants has been linked to the LEED and a selection of variables are available in this microdata product.
Further details about the construction of the LEED and summary results are available in Jobs in Australia and Personal Income in Australia.
About the microdata
Microdata are the most detailed information available. The Jobs and Income of Employed Persons microdata provides new insights to describe the number and nature of filled jobs, the people who held them, and their employers for consecutive financial years (starting from 2011-12) across more than 2,200 different regions in Australia.
Jobs and Income of Employed Persons microdata is available in the TableBuilder product, an online tool for creating tables and graphs. For more information about using microdata in general, see Microdata Entry Page.
Access to microdata
- Register and apply for access to TableBuilder through How to Apply for Microdata.
- Learn more About TableBuilder.
- Use the Table Builder User Guide.
Data available on request
Data items from the LEED, which are not included in the TableBuilder product, may be available on request to meet individual requirements. For inquiries about these and related statistics, contact the Customer Assistance Service via the ABS website Contact Us page. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.
File structure and content
File structure
Jobs and Income of Employed Persons TableBuilder provides data in two main categories: Persons and Jobs.
Person level data:
- Demographic information
- Geographic information
- Employee characteristics
- Income
- Migrant characteristics
Job level data:
- Job characteristics
- Employer characteristics
- Income
Data items are grouped under broad headings and subheadings, as shown in the image below:
These groups expand further for more specific and detailed analysis. A complete data items list is available in the Data downloads section.
Summation options
Summation options are built in to allow you to choose the type of information displayed in the table. These options include sum, mean and median for income based variables, measures of job duration, overlap between jobs, and age, as well as the basic summation options choosing between job and person counts.
The level relevant to each data item, persons or jobs, should be kept in mind when extracting and analysing data. The actual population count for each data item is equal to the total cumulative frequency minus the Not applicable category.
The expanded Job level summation options are pictured below:
Geography
All geographic information in the LEED is based on a person’s home address as reported on their Individual Tax Return form. Addresses are coded to the Australian Statistical Geography Standard, which details Statistical Areas, Local Government Areas, State Electoral Divisions and Commonwealth Electoral Divisions. Information is also available for the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas decile of a person's Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) region. All geography references 2018 boundaries.
If a geography variable is missing, if possible it is imputed from the individual's most recent Pay As You Go (PAYG) payment summary. When filtering data into job level data, any geography associated with a job is the residence of the employee and not the location of the business.
Industry
Industry is available at Broad and Fine levels. Broad industry division level provides 19 mutually exclusive divisions, which provide a broad overall picture of the economy. These divisions are further broken down into Fine industry subdivisions, groups and classes.
Industry information is either provided by the Australian Business Register or determined through the profiling process. An entity is classified to an industry using the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification.
Occupation
Occupation of main job is classified by Occupation type and Skill level. Occupation classifications refer to the collection of jobs sufficiently similar in title and tasks, skill level and skill specialisation. A person's occupation is identified from the main job on their individual tax return, which is defined by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations.
Migrants
The Migrant data used in LEED are sourced from the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP) integrated data asset.
The Migrant data are a suite of administrative datasets (visa grants and settlements database) from the Department of Home Affairs. These data pertain to permanent migrants and temporary entrants to Australia, as well as Australian citizens who have travelled into or out of Australia. For more information on the migrants' variables in this microdata product, see the Jobs in Australia and Personal Income in Australia methodology and glossary pages.
Missing
The Missing category represents the number of incomplete records for which the data items are not present. The underlying data of the LEED has a high rate of missing variables due to administrative tax data constraints and the linking and imputation processes.
Not applicable
The Not applicable category generally represents the population excluded from a derived data item. For example, the maximum number of concurrent jobs is not applicable for people without a second job.
Using TableBuilder
General information and instructions for the TableBuilder product are available in the TableBuilder User Guide.
Information specific to the Jobs and Income of Employed Persons TableBuilder is outlined below to assist in the understanding, interpretation and tabulation of the data.
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 are used to confidentialise records:
De-identification
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:
Field Exclusion Rules
Field Exclusion Rules were applied to the Jobs and Income of Employed Persons 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 message will be displayed at the top of the table:
Data items for cross-tabulation
The Jobs and Income of Employed Persons 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 and Income of Employed Persons 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.
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 outlined in Field Exclusion Rules.
Tabulation guidance
Detailed below are the steps required to build your own customised table in the Jobs and Income of Employed Persons. The snippets show an example of one table that could be created, but many other variables are available including other financial years. To create a table, first select the Jobs and Income of Employed Persons dataset from the Labour Force category:
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.
To define the required table, variables need to be selected and assigned 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 'Queue table' to populate 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.
After you have finished building your table structure, you need to submit the table to the queue and then download it to see the data.
For more information, the TableBuilder User Guide provides detailed instructions on how to Build a table, Working with tables and all other aspects of using the TableBuilder product.
Post-release changes
31/05/2023 - New data added for the 2019-20 financial year, including new migrants' data. The microdata product was also split into individual products for each year.
Data downloads
Jobs and Income of Employed Persons TableBuilder data item list
Data files
Previous catalogue number
This release previously used catalogue number 6160.0.00.001.