Gross Domestic Product YoY

Gross Domestic Product YoY is the percentage change versus the same quarter one year earlier. It uses seasonally adjusted chain volume GDP(A), where A means average, with seasonal patterns removed and prices held constant. It comes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics through the quarterly Australian National Accounts published since December 1960.

It covers all resident units under the System of National Accounts 2008 and draws on sample surveys plus government and administrative data. It is not welfare, not nominal growth and not GDP per capita, and state splits are less accurate than the national total.

It is released quarterly for quarters ending in March, June, September or December, about two months after each quarter ends at 11:30am Canberra time. Each release publishes quarterly and yearly real changes, nominal output, trade prices, the saving ratio and about 45 time series spreadsheets. Partial indicators appear before the release as a guide to likely moves, and most figures face revision as better data arrive. Revisions cover recent quarters and annual totals redistributed across quarters, with statistical discrepancies between the 3 approaches.

Spending, income and industry parts all move the yearly rate.

• Household final consumption expenditure: spending by households on goods and services, usually the largest component.
• General government final consumption expenditure: government spending on services such as health and education provided to households.
• Gross fixed capital formation: private and public investment in dwellings, machines and equipment, and infrastructure.
• Changes in inventories: the change in stocks held, which can move against trade and subtract whole points.
• Net trade in goods and services: exports minus imports, including mining goods and travel services.
• Income and industry value added: wages, company profits and industry value added before taxes.

In the June 2023 release published September 6, 2023, output rose 0.4% to 560.3 billion dollars for the 7th straight quarterly rise. Output grew 3.4% in the 2022-23 financial year as inventories fell 3.4 billion dollars to cut 1.1 points while net goods trade added 0.5 points. Fixed investment rose 2.4% and exports rose 4.3% led by services exports at 12.1% and travel services at 18.5%, while household spending rose only 0.1%. Nominal output fell 1.2% while real output rose 0.4%, and per capita output fell 0.3% as the saving ratio dropped to 3.2%.

1. Three estimates: Compile 3 independent quarterly output estimates in real terms for income, spending and production.
2. Volume linking: Express spending parts and production in prior year prices, then benchmark quarterly output to annual totals. Income volume comes from deflating current price output by the spending based price deflator.
3. Headline average: Take GDP(A) as the simple average of the 3 real measures. Reflate average output by the expenditure based deflator for nominal output.
4. Seasonal adjustment and trend: Remove seasonal patterns, using special handling for crops with zero output quarters. Smooth with a 7 term Henderson average and an asymmetric average for the latest 3 quarters.
5. Yearly rate: Compare output with the same quarter one year earlier using YoY = (GDP(Q) minus GDP(Q-4)) divided by GDP(Q-4) multiplied by 100. For June 2023, 560.3 minus June 2022 level 549.0 equals 11.3. Divided by 549.0 this equals 0.0206. Multiplied by 100 this equals 2.06, or about 2.1%.