Construction Work Done QoQ

Construction Work Done is Australia's preliminary quarterly estimate of construction work actually done, published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, Australia's official statistics agency). It combines the Building Activity Survey of approved homes from $10,000 and other buildings from $50,000 with the Engineering Construction Survey of all roofless work. It covers Australia plus each state and territory, resting on responses worth about 85% of work value, with the rest imputed. It is not approvals, repair and maintenance, land costs or a price index; it feeds investment estimates in the national accounts.

It covers work done during the March, June, September or December quarter and appears about 9 weeks after quarter-end at 11:30am Sydney time. Each release gives chain-volume $m levels with quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year % changes, split by sector and state or territory.

Data tables cover sectors and states in current prices and chain volume, with sampling-error data. Engineering finals follow about 13 weeks after quarter-end and building finals about 14 weeks after it. Each issue revises the prior quarter, and the March issue may revise earlier periods, while adjusted and trend figures move with new data. Seasonal factors face detailed review before the December quarter, and the reference year rolls forward each September quarter.

There is no threshold or target, so the total moves with building plus engineering across states and sectors.

• Residential building: new houses and other new homes plus alterations and additions, recorded with Goods and Services Tax (GST) included.
• Non-residential building: new buildings for other uses plus alterations and additions, recorded GST-exclusive.
• Engineering construction: roofless work such as roads, rail, pipelines, power and heavy industry, recorded GST-exclusive.
• Geography and sector split: Australia plus each state and territory, with engineering classed private or public by expected ownership at completion.

In the September quarter 2024, published November 27, 2024, total work rose 1.6% to $73,344.9m seasonally adjusted. Trend rose 0.7% to $72,838.9m, led by engineering. Engineering rose 2.6% to $34,706.9m and stood 6.0% above the same quarter a year earlier. Building rose 0.7% to $38,638.0m, as residential grew 1.8% to $23,373.0m while non-residential fell 1.0% to $15,265.0m.

Residential stood only 0.1% above its year-earlier level, while non-residential stood 1.7% above it despite the quarterly fall. New South Wales rose 2.6% to $20,845.5m, with Victoria up 2.4%, Tasmania up 4.2% and South Australia up 0.5%. Queensland fell 0.5%, Western Australia fell 1.6%, the Northern Territory fell 4.2% and the capital territory fell 4.7%. The lesson is that a rising headline can hide weak parts, so read building against engineering, states, and adjusted figures against trend.

1. Collect: survey the current-price value done in the quarter, from builders and owners for building and primary contractors for engineering.
2. GST basis: record residential building GST-inclusive and non-residential plus engineering GST-exclusive, then add building and engineering for the total.
3. Deflate: restate current-price values with the price data behind national-accounts investment deflators, leaving volume change.

1. Chain-link: using chain Laspeyres, value each year in previous-year prices and link blocks into one series. The reference year rolls forward each September quarter, and parts generally do not sum exactly to totals.
2. Seasonal adjustment: strip seasonal and calendar effects, adjusting each component independently so parts may not sum to totals. Smooth the rest into a trend that discounts outliers.

1. Headline move: compute the quarter-on-quarter % change as 100 times (current quarter minus prior quarter) divided by prior quarter, on adjusted chain-volume $m.