Australia’s economy today looks markedly different from the economy of two decades ago.

Gross value added measures the value an industry creates after subtracting the goods and services it uses in production. Comparing each industry’s gross value added with the total therefore provides a simple measure of its economic weight.

In June 2003, manufacturing generated 11.8 per cent of total Australian industry gross value added. By June 2026, its share had fallen to just 5.4 per cent — a decline of 6.4 percentage points.

The biggest structural winner has been mining. Its share almost doubled from 4.8 per cent to 9.4 per cent, making mining one of Australia’s largest industries by value generated.

But the transformation is not simply from manufacturing to mining.

Health care and social assistance increased from 6.0 per cent to 9.0 per cent, while professional, scientific and technical services rose from 5.8 per cent to 7.8 per cent.

Retail and wholesale trade also became relatively smaller parts of the economy.

These figures measure shares at current prices. That is deliberate: they show the economic value of different industries at each point in time.

The longer-run real output data provide an important additional perspective: manufacturing has not merely been overtaken by faster-growing industries — its real output has barely advanced over two decades.