Australian Industry Index – FAQs

1. What is AII?

The Ai Group Australian Industry Index® (Aii) is Ai Group’s monthly business activity indicator that tracks the performance of the industrial sectors of the Australian economy.

 

2. What industries does it cover?

Aii includes all sectors in the industrial ecosystem, draw from across manufacturing, construction and industry services. The table below lists its component sectors and their corresponding ANZSIC codes.

Aii Sector

Description

ANZSIC

Australian PMI®

All Manufacturing

Division C

Australian PCI®

All Construction

Division E

Chemicals

Petroleum and coal, basic chemical and polymer product manufacturing

17, 18, 19

Minerals and Metals Manufacturing

Non-metallic mineral, primary metal and fabricated metal product manufacturing

20, 21, 22

Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing

Transport equipment and machinery & equipment manufacturing

23, 24

Other Manufacturing

Food & beverages, textile clothing and footwear, wood products, paper and printing

11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25

Business services

Utilities, wholesale trade, transport postal & warehousing, information media & communications, professional scientific & technical and administrative and support services

Divisions D, F, I, J, M, N

 

3. What are some of the index’s sub-components?

The index has the following sub-components: Activity/Sales, Employment, New Orders, Input Volumes, Input Prices, Selling Prices, Wages, Exports (excluding for Construction), and Capacity Utilisation.

 

4. How do I read the data?

The indicators report on a scale of -100 to 100. Any value below 0 signifies contraction in the sector/component, and any value above 0 signifies expansion. The distance from 0 indicates the strength: 20 is expanding faster than 10.

 

5. What are Seasonally adjusted values?

Time series data can have seasonal variations. For example, you would expect lower factory output over the summer break in December/January. Seasonally adjusted data lets us identify underlying changes in business activity that are not accounted for by seasonal factors. We follow Australian Bureau of Statistics methodology to make seasonal adjustments.

 

6. What is Trend data?

Timeseries variables can have peaks and troughs, which are often one-off events that don’t necessarily characterise the long-run pattern in an industry. Trend data allows us to get a more even look of the variable and to minimise these extremes or outliers. We use the Henderson-13 technique to trend Aii data.  

 

7. How far back is data available?

The Aii was launched in January 2023, however, we back implemented the index up to 2017 for raw data (to compute seasonal adjustments and assign a structural break for COVID-19). Seasonally adjusted data is available from January 2020, and trend data from July 2020.

 

8. How can I use the data?

The use of the data would be subject to the terms and conditions of your subscription, please refer to said terms or contact economics@aigroup.com.au for a more detailed discussion.

 

9. Who can participate?

The data is collected through a monthly survey that is open to any Australian business in its included sectors. The survey is confidential, the data de-identified and only reported in aggregate. It is not anonymous - we verify participants, their geographic location and industry sector.

 

10. Who do I talk to for more information?

Please contact economics@aigroup.com.au for more information regarding the index.

 


 

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Disclaimer: The Australian Industry Group provides information services to its members and others, including economic policy and information services. None of the information provided here is represented or implied to be legal, accounting, financial or investment advice. The Australian Industry Group does not invite and does not expect any person to act or rely on any statement, opinion, representation or interference expressed or implied in this publication. The Australian Industry Group accepts no responsibility for any act or omission by any person relying in whole or in part upon the contents of this publication.