Australia Yearbook - 2001

566 Year Book Australia 2001
Measuring Australian industry
early last century
At the beginning of the century there was no
comparable information on Australian industry,
with little if any uniformity in the data collected
and published in each State. The following
excerpt from the the Official Year Book of the
Commonwealth of Australia, 1901–1907
provides further background: “The want of
uniformity in methods of compilation and
presentation of Australian statistics renders it an
extremely difficult task to make anything like a
satisfactory valuation of the various elements of
production. At present there is so little accurate
statistical knowledge regarding such industries
as forestry, fisheries, poultry and bee-farming,
that any valuation of the production therefrom
can only be regarded as the roughest
approximation”. However, despite these
difficulties, there were official estimates that in
1906 Agricultural production constituted 61% of
total production, Manufacturing 21% and
Mining 18%.
Output and employment by
industry
Two measures of the changing importance of an
industry are its contributions to GDP at basic
prices and to employment; these are illustrated in
table 13.1.
The table shows that, in 1998–99, Manufacturing
remained the most significant industry in terms of
its contribution to GDP. Property and business
services was the only other industry to contribute
over 10% of GDP and over 10% of total
employment. Manufacturing, with 12% of total
employment, was the second largest employing
industry behind Retail trade (15%).
13.1 INDUSTRY GROSS VALUE ADDED(a) AND EMPLOYMENT(b), By Industry—1998–99
Industry gross value added
Employment(b)
Contribution to
GDP(c)
Contribution to total
employment
Industry $m
(d)% ’000
%
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 18 191 3.1 433 5.0
Mining 23 001 3.9 76 0.9
Manufacturing 74 272 12.5 1 067 12.2
Electricity, gas and water supply 13 164 2.2 67 0.8
Construction 35 820 6.0 648 7.4
Wholesale trade 31 757 5.4 514 5.9
Retail trade 33 358 5.6 1 323 15.2
Accommodation, cafes and restaurants 12 814 2.2 419 4.8
Transport and storage 32 969 5.6 416 4.8
Communication services 17 247 2.9 156 1.8
Finance and insurance 39 277 6.6 302 3.5
Property and business services 61 031 10.3 954 10.9
Government administration and defence 24 056 4.1 (e)361 3.9
Education 26 719 4.5 624 7.2
Health and community services 34 292 5.8 811 9.3
Cultural and recreational services 10 888 1.8 217 2.5
Personal and other services 13 457 2.3 330 3.8
Ownership of dwellings 52 398 8.8 . . . .
Taxes less subsidies on products 42 370 7.1 . . . .
Statistical discrepancy –3770 .. .. ..
Total 593 311 100.0 8 716 100.0
(a) Industry gross value added at basic prices. (b) Estimates relate to May 1999 and are entirely sourced from the Labour Force
Survey. (c) Gross value added at basic prices. (d) Percentage contributions do not sum to 100% due to rounding. (e) Defence
forces are not included in the estimates of employment.
Source: Unpublished data, Australian System of National Accounts, 1998–99; Australian System of National Accounts (5204.0);
Labour Force, Australia (6203.0).