Introduction

Set out below are the main online sources for economic statistics in Australia. These sources have been chosen with needs of secondary teachers and students in mind. As more statistical sources become available they will be added to the page. Another page listing statistical sources for economists is from the Parliamentary Library in Canberra. Economic Indicators on the Internet by Guy Woods is an excellent listing of online resources in this area. General collections contain a comprehensive set of economic indicators while specific sources contain statistics on particular topics of interest to teachers.

General Collections of Economic Statistics

The RBA provides both historical and current time series data for all key economic indicators and monetary statistics. Students will find labour market, price and production statistics, external accounts and summary overseas economic data here in abundance. The RBA data may be downloaded in excel spreadsheets and economic indicators are measured on a quarterly and a monthly basis. (Students should note that they may need to change the data to an annual basis for use in economic assignments at school) Students are advised to carefully read the excellent article on how to present and use economic statistics written by the RBA. This is by far the best source of economic statistics in Australia. The RBA also makes available its chart pack. Teachers who are looking for current graphs of economic statistics will find an them here.

Parliamentary Library in Canberra Monthly Social and Economic Indicators

The parliamentary library offers and excellent collection of economic statistics for teachers. Key labour, production, external national accounts and international comparisions are available online in html format. Graphs are also included. These can be printed out and used with students in classes. Data is presented in quarterly format and monthly format. This data is difficult to change to annual series because it is in html format. The library however will appears to make available longer term time series data in excel spreadsheets. To date this facility appears not to work. MESI also offers links to other parliamentary and economic publications and papers many teachers will find useful. The Library's E briefs and briefing papers on the economic issues of the day are extremely useful backgrounders for teachers if not in some cases for students.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics

The Bureau is Australia's premier source of economic statistics. Schools that can afford it will find AusStats an outstanding service. The Bureau however provides much information for free. The Australia Now section of its website is the best online source for hard to get statistics. Sections of Measuring Australia's Economy and Measuring Australia's progress offer a broad range of statistics relevant to schools. In particular statistics on quality of life and pollution are available in Measuring Australia's progress. These can be downloaded from the ABS web site for free. The relevant sections of the Yearbook contain current information on Income Distribution and Gini Co efficients. The Year Book offers a wide range of industry statistics for students researching markets and is the best source on Innovation and Patent Statistics. It also contains a section on sports attendances and participation. The Bureau's media releases on current statistical publication are excellent sources of objective comment on recent statistics. Teachers will also find the Key National Indicators section of their website an extremely useful resource on the Business Cycle.

The Australian Property Council CyberStat Service

This is an outstanding service that provides current economic statistics covering all key economic indicators. It also contains time series data of building approvals. The data at CyberStat may be viewed online or downloaded as spreadsheets. Data is usually in either monthly or quarterly format. The Property council also make BIS Shrapnel economic forecasts available online. This is an excellent site for teachers and students provided careful note is made of the type of data, real, seasonally adjusted etc and the period used for measurement( monthly quarterly etc). CyberStats data on occasion may need modification before it is suitable for classroom use.

Specific Collections of Economic Statistics

Productivity

The productivity commission offers regular updates of labour, capital and multi factor productivity statistics. These are extremely useful for teachers covering Micro Economic Reform and efficiency in the allocation of resources. Estimates are available for the whole country and for each main industry group. Other research papers and discussion papers on this site often contain extremely elusive statistics. For example estimates of the costs of tariff assistance to the community. Most students are comfortable with labour productivity statistics, however teachers will need to extract the data from the research reports. This is usually too difficult for Secondary students. Productivity estimates may be downloaded as excel files.

Treasury and the Budget

Treasury provides current time series data of unit labour costs in both html and excel file formats. Economic RoundUp which is published each quarter contains a comprehensive statistical summary of current economic performance. This is published as an appendix in each issue of RoundUp. Economic RoundUp can be dowloaded as a PDF file from the site. Treasury also publishes many discussion and working papers that contain topical statistics. These are often too hard for students but teachers can always dowload this material and copy and paste the graphs and tables into other documents.

Budget

The Commonwealth Budget papers, including the Budget at a Glance and Budget Overview documents are excellent sources of economic statistics for teachers. These cover all main economic objectives, Commonwealth budget aggregates and budget balances and economic forecasts. Data from the mid year fiscal outlook and the portfolio estimates are also available from the site. Most students can deal with the Budget overview more detailed data is best extracted from the papers and represented by teachers to students. This is an excellent source of analysis and comment for Economic teachers.

Business Conditions and Confidence

The ACCI makes available reports of its various surveys of Business Expectations,Investor Confidence and Industrial trends online. These surveys are available in PDF format and contains, comment, graphs and a selection of data summarizing key trends. The publications are short and in many cases suitable for use with students.

National Australia Bank Monthly Survey of Business Conditions

The NAB publish the findings of their survey along with comment and graphs in PDF files available form the Business Solutions section of their website. NAB provide a summary table of changes in respondents attitudes for each section of their survey.This is a useful resource to help students understand how data is collected and interpret its meaning.

Small and Medium Enterprise Confidence Survey

Sensis provides summaries of the key findings of its Business Confidence survey in the news section of its web site. The report is available in PDF file format and while fairly long parts of the survey make useful classroom resources.

D&B's Expectations Survey

The D and B survey is regularly reported in press and in the press release section of the Australian D&B site teachers may read a short summary in html format or download the actual report itself in pdf format. The report contains comment, graphs and data and a section on the survey methodology.

National Business Bulletin

The National Business Bulletin conducts a small business survey. Historically the results of the survey have been available online.

Australian Industry Group Manufacturing Survey

AIG allows the public to download many of its surveys of manufacturing, competitiveness and the construction industry. These contain graphs and data that are often reported in the news and useful in economic classes.

The Melbourne Insitute of Applied Social and Economic Research

The insitute produces a wide range of surveys and indicators such as the survey of consumer sentiment, surveys of inflation expectations, household savings and research on poverty lines. Teachers who wish to use this data will need large bank accounts. Most is available for subscribers only. MIASER more popular surveys on inflationary expectations and consumer expectations may be dowloaded from the RBA site. Explorers at this site may find however much useful information in their working paper section. Working Papers MIASER also produce research and development scorecards for Australian enterprises that teachers may wish to purchase.

Trade

Teachers and students researching Australia's trade with the rest of the world will find Austrade an indispensible resource. Austrade will soon make available in PDF format the Composition and Direction of Australia's trade with individual countries. These are available in pdf files and will soon be available as excel files. It also offers an industry specific database of facts and statistics that is extremely useful for students researching exporting industries. Austrade also provides Trade fact sheets for the whole country and trade fact sheets for Australia's trade with individual countries. These are excellent resources for classroom use.

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

DFAT provides country fact sheets and much data about Australia's trade aggreements in its reports. Teachers will find however the MarketWatch section of the DFAT site a fruitful source of markets reports and data on selected countries. Furthermore a comprehensive set of trade related publications containing statistics are available at a reasonable costs from DFAT's Economic Analytical Unit

Labour Market

ANZ Job Ads Series

The ANZ produces both short and long reports on its Job advertisement series. These are available in the Media release and Economics section of their website. The Job Ads media releases contains graphs and data and is available in PDF and MS word file formats.

The Department of Workplace Relations and Small Business

This department makes available a lot of hard to get labour market data. These are accessible through the publications section of their site. Teachers should choose Employment > Publications to access DWRB leading employment indicator and its reports on skilled job vacancies. Specific links to these sources have been included below however there is no guarrantee they will work over time. Teachers may therefore have to access this material through the department's home page. Various reports inlcuding articles on the current state of the labour market are available from this source. Leading Indicator | Jobs Update | Job Skills Shortages and Vacancies Will your students get a job next year? Job Outlook Site Here students can search to discover whether or not there are jobs available in their chosen occupation. View the skill shortage lists at Shortages | Workplace Relations Publications This section contains the departments reports and statistics on enterprise aggreements and other topical labour market regulation issues. For example unfair dismissals.

Hudson

Hudon Resourcing provides their survey of employer's employment intentions and a range of other publications online in PDF format. A great feature of this site that will appeal to teachers is their PDF summaries of salary information. These show salary ranges for a raft of occupations and professons by State. An extremely useful resource for teaching labour market issues.

Income Distribution

National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling

NATSEM produce an income distribution report however this is expensive and too detailed for teachers. Many articles, discussion and working papers on this topic are available from their site Distribution Report NATSEM

The Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The Bureau publishes current gini co efficients and household income share data in the Australian Now section of its web site. This data while difficult to use because it is in html format is the most useful resource on the Net for teachings dealing with this topic. Measuring Australia's progress also has a lot of useful statistics on this topic and may be downloaded for free from their site. Household Income and Wealth