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Research Brief no. 1 2006–07
Distribution of businesses by industry and Commonwealth electoral
division, June 2004
Tony Kryger
Statistics and Mapping Section
5 July 2006
Contents
Executive summary
Notes on tables
Endnotes
List of Tables
Table 1. Number of businesses by industry sector: top ten electorates,
June 2004
Table 2. Number of businesses by industry sector: all electorates,
June 2004
Table 3. Number of businesses by industry sector: electorates
ranked by total number of businesses, June 2004
Table 4. Industry concentration: top ten electorates, June 2004
Table 5. Industry concentration: all electorates, June 2004
Executive summary
This Research Brief complements the Research Note ‘Estimates of Businesses
by Commonwealth Electoral Division’(1) which contains estimates
of the number of businesses by size of business and Commonwealth electoral
division. Using data from the same source—the Australian Bureau of Statistics
Business Register (ABSBR)(2) for June 2004—this Brief provides
estimates of the number of businesses by industry and Commonwealth electoral
division.
A number of tables are included that show, for each electorate, how many
businesses there are of each industry type and the percentage contribution
of each industry to the total number of businesses in the electorate (i.e.
industry concentration).
Business numbers
There are just over three million businesses in Australia.
The majority (almost 2.2 million) of these are non-employing businesses,
leaving around 840 000 that are employing businesses.(3)
Almost a quarter of all businesses are to be found in property and business
services (24 per cent), with the next largest number of businesses in
construction (15 per cent) followed by finance and insurance (14 per cent).
Together, these three industry sectors account for more than half of all
businesses in Australia (but
only a quarter of all employed persons which indicates that these sectors
are mainly comprised of small businesses).
The largest number of businesses is to be found in the electorate of
Sydney (84 100) with the nearby electorates
of North Sydney (44 100), Wentworth (37 700),
Bradfield (32 000), Warringah (30 200), Mackellar (27 900)
and Lowe (26 000) also accounting for a significant
number of businesses. These seven urban Sydney
electorates together account for almost 10 per cent of all businesses
in Australia.
After Sydney, the electorate with the
next largest number of businesses is Melbourne (58 200)
followed by Adelaide (45 400). Other non-Sydney electorates with
a significant number of businesses include Melbourne Ports (42 000),
Brisbane (37 400) and Curtin in
Western Australia (36 100). At the other extreme, electorates with
a very small number of businesses include Lingiari (NT), Franklin
(Tas), Throsby (NSW), Braddon (Tas) and Lyons (Tas),
all with fewer than 11 000 businesses each. (See Tables 1 to 3.)
Industry concentration
Industry concentration is a term that describes the percentage contribution
of each industry to the total number of businesses in an electorate. It
is a useful measure for comparing electorates in terms of the relative
importance of different industries. For example, although Throsby (NSW)
has far fewer retail businesses than Wentworth (NSW), retail is a more
significant industry in Throsby. Retail accounts for 12.0 per cent of
all businesses in Throsby compared with just 6.2 per cent in Wentworth.
It is important to note, however, that significance is measured here in
terms of the number of businesses. Quite a different picture of significance
might emerge if data were available on the percentage contribution of
each industry to the total employment or gross product of an electorate.
Table 4 lists the 10 electorates which have the highest concentration
of businesses in each type of industry. It shows that the electorate with
the highest concentration of businesses in agriculture, forestry and fishing
is Maranoa (Qld); mining—Kalgoorlie (WA); manufacturing—Oxley (Qld); construction—Brand
(WA); wholesale trade—Moreton (Qld); retail trade—Braddon (Tas); accommodation,
cafés and restaurants—Eden–Monaro (NSW); transport and storage—Calwell
(Vic); communication services—Chifley (NSW); finance and insurance—Adelaide
(SA); property and business services—North Sydney (NSW); education—Fraser
(ACT); health and community services—Curtin (WA); cultural and recreational
services—Wentworth (NSW); and personal and other services—Kingston (SA).
Note that although an electorate like Oxley has a higher concentration
of businesses in manufacturing industry than any other electorate, this
does not mean that Oxley has the largest number of manufacturing businesses
(the electorate of Sydney has). Nor does
it mean that within Oxley there are more manufacturing businesses than
there are businesses of any other industry type (the largest number of
businesses in Oxley are those in property and business services). It simply
means that a higher proportion of businesses in Oxley are manufacturing
businesses than is the case in any other electorate of Australia.
Table 5 gives a detailed breakdown of industry concentration by Commonwealth
electorate.
Tables 1 to 5 that follow have been derived from counts of businesses
by industry and postcode supplied by the ABS. These counts at the postcode
level were then aggregated by the Parliamentary Library to electoral divisions
using a postcode to electorate concordance.(4)
For confidentiality reasons, the ABS had to suppress the value for the
number of businesses in certain postcodes in certain industry sectors.
Where this happened, it was necessary to impute a value for these postcodes
to enable postcodes then to be aggregated to electorates. Since the ABS
identified the total number of businesses in any given industry, values
were imputed in such a way as to ensure that when the number of businesses
in individual postcodes were added together, the sum still corresponded
with these industry totals.(5)
- Guy Woods, ‘Estimates of
businesses by Commonwealth Electoral Division
(ABS Business Register snapshot June 2004)’, Research Note,
no. 20, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2005–06.
- The ABSBR is made up of two business populations, known as the Australian
Bureau of Statistics maintained population (ABSMP) and the Australian
Taxation Office maintained population (ATOMP). Businesses that belong
to the ABSMP are typically large, complex and diverse businesses. Businesses
that belong to the ATOMP are businesses with an Australian Business
Number with at least one of the following non-cancelled tax roles: Goods
and Services Tax Instalments Payer, Income Tax Instalment Payer or Income
Tax Withholding. The vast majority of businesses are in the ATOMP. For
more information see ABS,
Australian Bureau of Statistics Business Register:Counts of Businesses—Summary
Tables, cat. no. 8161.0.55.001, pp 18–19, June 2004.
- A business that belongs to the ABSMP (see [2] above) is defined as
an employing business if it has greater than zero employees. A business
that belongs to the ATOMP is defined as an employing business if it
has a non-cancelled income tax withholding role and has remitted to
the Australian Taxation Office at least once in the preceding five quarters.
For more information see, ibid., p. 21.
- Andrew Kopras, ‘Postcodes in
electoral divisions (2003 electoral boundaries)’, Research Paper,
no. 11, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2003–04.
- Because of the method of imputing values for cells with suppressed
values, the total number of businesses in each electorate identified
in this paper may differ slightly from the corresponding figures published
in the Research Note identified in [1] above.
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