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Sources of statistics

Australian data and statistics

  • uCube - Department of Education, Skills and Employment (Australian Government) - Key source of employment and remuneration data for the Higher Education sector. See this link for 2021 data. Remuneration for staff within the sector are gauged by what is known as Higher Education Worker level (HEW) this scale runs from 1 through 10 and appears as an acronym for example HEW5 for level 5 remuneration - within levels steps exist (i.e HEW5.1 = first step of level 5) throughout each level and loosely track experience and skills acquired. Employment is often gauged on a fraction scale (Full Time Equivalent or FTE) given the form and format of employment - lectures, tutorials, workshops etc. 
     
  • Department of Education, Skills & Employment - DESE is a federal Australian Government department formed on 1st of February 2020 from the merger of the Department of Education and Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business. Sector specific terminology designed to gauge student enrollment and study mode is often represented in the form EFTSL (Equivalent Full Time Study Load) such that student enrollments maybe gauged against what constitutes a program of full time award study. Note Australian universities are required to report such information under the Higher Education Support Act (HESA) 2003 (Section 19-70). Research funding and associated statistics maybe gleaned from the Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) a portlet on the DESE website.
     
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics - Australia’s national statistical agency. Look for thematic or topical surveys by searching the website. Labour statistics are available at occupation level via quarterly reports - search for these by name on the ABS site for more information on employment data reporting see here.
     
  • EIU Country Data + EIU Viewpoint (QUT Library Databases) - See, Business Environment, overview for countries and industries. Macro-economic forecasts indicators for Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and all other locales are available with rich description to provide context.
     
  • Reserve Bank of Australia - the RBA website has a range of pages which provide statistical summaries as snapshots. 
     
  • QLD Government Publications & Data - Go to the central source - both data and publications across a variety of sites will be available through this website.
     
  • Department of the Treasury (Australian Government) - The Treasury is the Australian Government ministerial department responsible for economic policy, fiscal policy, market regulation, and the Australian federal budget. The treasury website hosts information on and for business and industry alongside submissions from various industry and business stakeholders in the lead up to each budget.
     
  • CEDA - Formed in 1960 by one of Australia's foremost economists, Sir Douglas Copland, CEDA's purpose is harness the ideas and influence of leading thinkers from business, government, community and academia. Start with the pages providing research and policy - these will be most useful in defining current and future economic directions. Look for the CEDA series, "Economic & Political Outlook".

  • Business Council of Australia - An industry organisation representing Australia’s largest employers, advocating for policy on behalf of the business community and Australians employed by business enterprises.

Worldwide Statistics

  • FRED is the St. Louis Federal Reserve's (United States) web tool to find, graph, download, and understand economic and social science data. GeoFRED allows you to create, customize, and share geographical maps of data found in FRED. Refer to the research guide for further instruction on how to identify and extract relevant Australian / Global country data.

  • OECD iLibrary - OECD features eBooks, articles, working papers, reports, and statistics. Note this resource is a subscribed service and requires you to login with your QUT login credentials.

  • OECD Data - provides many statistical series based on topic. See this link for available snapshot data on agriculture.

  • OECD - facilitates discovery of publications and data by country and topic. Start early with this source as there may be some investment of time required to orient yourself to the available tools and publications on the website. 
     
  • Worldbank Data - The Worldbank hosts excellent wayfinding guides for data and indicators. Research reports issued from WB are an alternative source of information for identifying relevant data series and statistics; cross reference series featured as figures, tables or in-text using the WB Data portal.

Subjects: Business / Economics and finance
Tags: data, economic data, economic policy, EFB249, global economic data, macroeconomics