Page 63 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 6

CPS1499 Hayley Collett

Australian Labour Account: A new holistic view of
people and jobs
Hayley Collett
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Australia

Abstract
The Australian Labour Account has been developed to provide a framework
for integrating labour data from a number of sources (including household
survey, business survey, and administrative data). The result is consistent
estimates of key labour market variables, which more effectively enable the
description and analysis of the state and dynamics of the Australian labour
market. These core variables can help users make sense of seemingly
inconsistent labour related data, which are often based on different reference
periods, populations, concepts, definitions and methodologies. The purpose
of the Australian Labour Account is to support macro-economic analysis of
peoples’ participation in employment and related production over time. Its
development provides an opportunity to significantly improve the quality of
aggregates such as the number of jobs occupied within each industry,
measures of hours worked, and improved labour productivity estimation. The
concepts and definitions underlying the Australian Labour Account are built
on International Labour Organisation (ILO) fundamentals, while expanding
them to ensure consistency with the 2008 System of National Accounts
(SNA08). The result provides a set of core macro-economic labour market
variables derived through data integration, with both an industry focus and
time series dimension.

Keywords
Employment; industry; productivity; macro-economy

1. Introduction
The Australian Labour Account provides a conceptual framework through
which existing labour market data from different sources can be confronted
and integrated, with the aim of producing a coherent and consistent set of
aggregate labour market statistics.
The Australian Labour Account is macro-economic in scope, building on
the International Labour Organisation (ILO) fundamentals and expanding
them to ensure consistency with the Australian System of National Accounts
(ASNA). It aims to extend the analytical capacity of national accounts data by
providing a labour-specific lens. The Australian Labour Account produces a set

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