The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ first quarterly Labour Account, which was released yesterday, shows a 1.0 per cent increase in the number of filled jobs in the manufacturing sector in the September quarter 2017 to 873,500 jobs –the highest since December 2015.
The average labour cost per hour worked in the manufacturing industry continued to moderate, decreasing slightly to $46.92.
The Australian Labour Account provides information across the 19 industry divisions, available for each quarter from September 2010 to September 2017.
The total number of jobs in Australia increased by 92,746 to 13.7 million in seasonally adjusted terms in the September quarter 2017 – including 68,490 additional main jobs and 24,256 additional secondary jobs.
Total labour income increased by $2,553 resulting in the average labour income per employed person being $18,361.
“The Australian Labour Account provides the most complete picture of the labour market, and a measure of the total number of jobs worked. This means we can gauge the total hours worked and income across multiple jobs – not just people’s main job,” said Bruce Hockman, Chief Economist at the ABS.
The new estimates also show over 13 per cent increase in the number of jobs in the professional, scientific and technical services industry through the year to September 2017 – the fastest of any industry in the economy.
This industry, which includes (but is not limited to) architecture, engineering, computer systems design, law and accountancy, now has over 1.1 million jobs, representing 8.6 per cent of all filled jobs. It is now the fourth largest industry in the economy, behind the health care and social assistance, retail trade and accommodation and food services industries.
“The Australian Labour Account showed that over 70,000 of these jobs in the professional, scientific and technical services industry were secondary jobs, where the person had another main job,” Hockman said.
The number of hours worked in professional, scientific and technical services increased by 11.8 per cent to 481.2 million hours through the year to September 2017. Total labour income in the industry increased by 16.0 per cent to $26.6 billion over the same period.
The quarterly Australian Labour Account provides a framework through which to use existing labour market data from diverse sources. It is also an important new source of industry information that is expected to lead to improvements in the measurement of productivity in Australia.
