Happy Australia Day - Australian Statistics

With another Australia day weekend past us, it is always interesting to know what is happening in and around Australia, what is changing and future trends. In fact for some of my financial analysis I look at past and future trends to try and gauge the impact of various macroeconomic issues (eg age demographics shows an ageing population, which suggest superannuation companies like AMP can benefit from this trend). It is also just interesting to see what is happening in Australia. The best site for this is the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) website which has tons of useful statistics. Best of all, it is all free - thanks to our taxes!

Here are some national statistics you should be aware of:

- Australian Population : 21,194,703 (1.02% of world population). Projected population by 2100 : between 22.4 and 43.5 million. 7%–10% of the population is expected to be over 85 yrs old by 2101!

- Number or employed Australians is 10,588,500, with unemployment rate at a historically low 4.2%.

- In the 12 months to June 2004, (last survey point) Australian households spent an average of $893 each week on goods and services. I would estimate that is closer to $1000 now given inflation and strength of our economy. How does your weekly spending compare to the average household?

- Full-time adult ordinary time earnings rose by 5.2% for males and 4.8% for females in the twelve months to August 2007. So at your next pay review, use these figures to tell your boss that your pay should be greater than the average! Looks like men not only get paid more, their pay goes up more.....

- At the end of the March quarter 2007, there were 6.43 million active Internet subscribers in Australia. - 33% were still using dial-up connections. In South Korea and Japan, the figure is less than 1% using dial-up. Australia needs to catch up here and move everyone to broadband to really leverage the Internet.

- There were 498,800 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia and 429,900 short-term resident departures from Australia during November 2007. When travellers equal 5% of the population, you can see why the Airports are so busy. Macquarie Airports (MAP) anyone?

You can even get statistics on beer and wine consumption trends at this site. That's where all the media channels primarily get their information from. Feel free to comment on this post by clicking here.

You may have also noticed I have got a new header on my site - what do you think? click here to comment on it. Also, thanks to Neerav Bhatt from the Road Less Travelled Blog for permission to use the Sydney Harbour picture in the header. Check out the other great photos and articles on his blog which I read regularly.