Understanding
productivity.

The measures in plain English.

How the comparisons are calculated.

Quarterly percentage changes use published ABS series. Annual change is calculated as 100 × (the index divided by its level four quarters earlier − 1), using the accepted stored observations before display rounding. Rounded source indexes can produce small differences from other published growth measures.

The optional five-year average is the arithmetic mean of 20 consecutive quarterly observations of the selected growth rate (annual or quarterly), ending in the quarter shown. It is calculated from full source history before the chart range is selected, requires all 20 values, and never uses later quarters. The quarterly view averages quarter-on-quarter percentage changes; the annual view averages year-on-year percentage changes. Neither is a compound annual growth rate over five years. Neither is an ABS trend estimate.

Living standards compares published GDP per hour with real GDP per capita (ABS A2304404C) from the same accepted National Accounts edition, and with OD-ECON-REAL-WPI-DERIVED-0.1.0 from Jobs & wages. The real wage line uses its ORIGINAL variant, not a fully seasonally adjusted series. Each line is independently rebased to 100 at a common available quarter. No missing period is interpolated and no different-frequency series is spliced.

The Output & hours chart divides each series by its own value in the selected start quarter and multiplies by 100. It retains the published ABS output-per-hour series; it does not reconstruct productivity from a separate GDP series and Labour Force hours.

The index view and rebased comparison charts include zero on their axes. Growth charts include zero and show negative values when present. All data preserves published coverage; unavailable values are not filled in.

Official sources. A specific edition.

ABS: Australian National Accounts, June quarter 2026, Tables 1 and 24. This section uses recorded data release OD-NA01-NATIONAL-2026-Q2-0.1.0. Whole-economy productivity is available from 1978; market and non-market productivity from 1994.

This is the June quarter 2026 publication vintage, including its historical revisions. It is not an archive of what was known at each past date. This section does not update automatically or adopt later annual National Accounts revisions.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Published aggregate data used under CC BY 4.0. Data preserved and processed by OD Engine; presentation and calculations by Common Sense Money Pty Ltd / The Economic Picture. No ABS endorsement.

Further explanation: Understanding ABS productivity statistics and RBA: Productivity.

Exact source series.