Monthly Business Turnover Indicator

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Experimental indicator of business turnover derived from monthly Business Activity Statements

Reference period
January 2024
Released
13/03/2024

Key statistics

In seasonally adjusted terms, the January 2024 monthly business turnover indicator showed: 

  • Rises in 8 of the 13 published industries 
  • The largest rise was in Electricity, gas, water and waste services (5.8%)
  • The largest fall was in Arts and recreation services (-2.2%)
  • Year-on-year, rises were seen in 12 of 13 published industries

Index base period: July 2019 = 100.0.

  • This experimental indicator is derived from Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Business Activity Statements (BAS) turnover data from monthly BAS remitters. It includes 13 of the 19 industry divisions classified according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006.
  • Monthly BAS reporting covers businesses with GST annual turnover of $20 million or more and a proportion of smaller businesses that report monthly on a voluntary basis.
  • The estimated monthly changes in business turnover are aligned as closely as is feasible to the Australian System of National Accounts concept of market output. Users should exercise caution in comparing the indicator to other ABS economic outputs due to differences in concepts, scope, coverage, and methods.

Changes to the Monthly Business Turnover Indicator

Additional outputs have been included in the Monthly Business Turnover Indicator for this release. 

An index representing the aggregate of the 13 in-scope ANZSIC divisions (13-industry aggregate) is published, along with indexes for selected ANZSIC subdivisions.  These series are available in original, seasonally adjusted and trend terms.

As part of these changes, the ABS assessed the method for seasonal adjustment across the three levels of output (aggregate, division and subdivision). Previously, the division-level series were directly adjusted, providing an independent assessment of the seasonality for each series. Starting this month, these series are now indirectly adjusted by applying seasonal adjustment to the subdivision-level series individually and values summed to obtain the seasonally adjusted series for the division. 

This change in method has resulted in revisions to the seasonally adjusted and trend estimates for the division-level series. 

13-Industry aggregate

  • The MBTI 13-industry aggregate rose 0.2% in trends terms during January, following a 0.2% rise in December. 
  • Turnover has been steady over the past few months, with January 2024 reaching a time series high of 133.3 index points.
  • The main contributors to the rise were Mining, Electricity, gas, water and waste services, and Transport, postal and warehousing

 

Index base period: July 2019 = 100.0.

Industry

Total turnover differs between industries. This should be considered when analysing month-to-month movements in the context of overall economic activity. The chart below shows the seasonally adjusted monthly movements in the turnover indicator for January 2024 (represented by colour) and the selected industries' estimated share of total turnover for the 2022-23 financial year (represented by circle size). 

Chart showing the monthly movements in the turnover indicator for January 2024 (represented by colour) and the selected industries' estimated share of total turnover for the 2022-23 financial year (represented by circle size).

The chart has 13 circles, one for each industry division included in the Monthly Business Turnover Indicator. The size of each circle represents the share of total business turnover for the 2022-23 financial year for that industry. Circles are also given a colour shading to represent the monthly change in the Monthly Business Turnover Indicator for the current reference month. Industries with negative movements are coloured orange, those with little or no movement are grey, and positive movements are blue.

The largest circles are for Manufacturing, Mining, Wholesale trade, and Retail trade.

Electricity, gas, water and waste services is a strong blue, showing positive movement in business turnover. Arts and recreation services is coloured orange, showing a negative movement in business turnover.

Business turnover differs from the National Accounts concept of output. For example, the value of goods sold by wholesalers and subsequently retailers are reflected in turnover for both industries while National Accounts output measures the margins gained by each industry.

Industry analysis and charts

In January 2024, 8 of the 13 industry divisions included in the indicator showed rises in monthly turnover in seasonally adjusted terms. The largest rises in monthly turnover were seen in:

  • Electricity, gas, water and waste services (5.8%)
  • Transport, postal and warehousing (4.1%)
  • Professional, scientific and technical services (2.9%)

The industries that showed the largest falls in January 2024 were:

  • Arts and recreation services (-2.2%)
  • Construction (-0.7%)
  • Manufacturing and Administrative and support services (both -0.2%)

Year-on-year, 12 of 13 industry divisions recorded rises in business turnover. The largest rises were recorded in:

  • Construction (15.0%)
  • Electricity, gas, water and waste services (11.8%)
  • Professional, scientific and technical services (8.5%) 

The only industry division recording a fall in business turnover in January 2024, compared with January 2023 was:

  • Mining (-9.8%)

 

Mining

Manufacturing

Electricity, gas, water and waste services

Construction

Wholesale trade

Retail trade

Accommodation and food services

Transport, postal and warehousing

Information media and telecommunications

Professional, scientific and technical services

Administrative and support services

Arts and recreation services

Other services

Trend graphs for selected industries

Trend graphs for selected industries

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

Caution: Data in Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the reference period when using Data Explorer.

For more information about Data Explorer, see the Data Explorer user guide.

Business Turnover Indicator - Monthly percentage changes and indexes, January 2010 onwards

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