Productivity

Retail sales are rising. Retail employment is falling.

Australian retailers generated more income and value added in 2024–25 despite employing 8,000 fewer people. But the productivity story is more complicated than it first appears.

Indigenous Corresctional Rates

Indigenous Correctional Gap Widens Across Australia

The Indigenous correctional disparity extends well beyond prisons. New ABS data show the age-standardised community-corrections gap has widened sharply since 2017.

Retail Industry

Retail Industry: Sales and Margins

A $100 clothing sale leaves a $56 retail margin. A $100 new-car sale leaves just $6.50. New ABS data reveal how dramatically retail economics varies by product.

Manufacturing

Australia versus America: two very different manufacturing economies

The US manufacturing sector is larger and structurally deeper than Australia's, particularly in automotive, aerospace and defence. Australia remains strong in food, metals, resources and selected advanced manufacturing niches.

Victoria Prison Population

Victoria’s prison population rises 15% ahead of the state election

Victoria's prison population has grown faster than any other Australian jurisdiction over the past year. Yet its imprisonment rate remains the second-lowest nationally, complicating the law-and-order story ahead of November's election.

Unemployment Rates

Unemployment Rates - Split by Industry Sector

Australia’s headline unemployment rate hides enormous differences between industries. This Explainer compares all 19 industry unemployment rates and how they have changed since 2010.

Small Business

Australia Inc: Small business is losing economic ground

Small businesses dominate Australia's business count, but their economic footprint is shrinking. Their share of private-sector employment has fallen from 53% in 2006 to 39%, while their share of GDP has dropped from 40% to 32%.

Australia’s population reaches 27.9 million — 68% live in the capital cities

Australia’s population has reached 27.92 million, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates. At 31 March 2026, the population was 27,921,150, up 392,700 people, or 1.4 per cent, over the previous year. New South Wales remains comfortably the largest state, with 8.

Bank Profits

Explainer: Why scale matters so much in Australian banking

Australia’s smaller deposit-taking institutions are not necessarily being beaten on lending margins. APRA data suggest the much bigger problem is the cost of providing banking services at smaller scale.

Temporary Visa Holders

Background to Tony Burke's pending immigration announcement

If the debate is about temporary migration, the first number to understand is the stock of temporary visa holders already in Australia. That number reached 3.03 million at the end of 2025.

Federal Reserve

Background: The Fed inflation target

The Fed's 2% inflation target sounds simple. In practice, US monetary policy has evolved from Volcker's war on inflation to average inflation targeting and, since 2025, back to flexible inflation targeting.

Federal Reserve

Why the Fed just raised rates

The Federal Reserve has raised rates for the first time since 2023. Persistent inflation explains the economics, but Kevin Warsh’s appointment by Donald Trump makes the politics unusually significant.

Reading: Australia’s quarter-century decline in proficiency

Australia’s latest PISA results show that the deterioration in educational performance extends well beyond mathematics. Reading performance has also declined substantially. When the OECD’s comparable reading series began in 2000, Australian 15-year-olds recorded an average PISA reading score of 528.3. By 2025, that had fallen