Budget cuts ABS research 10:06am 20.05.08

The Federal Budget has meant a $22 million funding cut to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in the 2008/09 financial year. Last week’s release saw an announcement of significant reductions to a number of ABS research including the Labour Force Survey and the Monthly Retail Trade report. Other business-related surveys, such as those on Job Vacancies and Trade Margins will be cut altogether.

Writing for Fairfax, global retail and property analyst Michael Baker says because of the focus on the Labour Force Survey, the reduction to the Monthly Retail Trade report slipped “under the radar”. He argues that the cut to the retail report will have just as much impact: “Unfortunately, in the current situation we are not witnessing a trade-off between frequency and quality. For the disadvantage of having less frequent data reports from the ABS we will not be compensated with better information. This is lose-lose.”