Fair Work Commission

Previous operations & performance

The AWRS contains a range of financial performance indicators reported by enterprises that can give context to workplace relations decisions and practices.

These indicators include objective measures drawn from administrative records supplied by enterprises via the Financial Information questionnaire, as well as subjective assessments made by survey respondents that have drawn on a range of considerations, including some that may be quantifiable.

Enterprises reported for the last financial year of its operations and performance, which for most (90%) was the July 2012 to June 2013 year.

As presented in Table 3.5, the majority (80%) of enterprises in the AWRS had made a profit in the last financial year.

Source: AWRS 2014, Financial Information survey and Enterprise Characteristics survey.

Base = 1656 enterprises for analysis of all enterprises.

Base = 1307 enterprises for analysis of enterprises operating for profit. Enterprises that answered 'unsure' are excluded from the analysis.

Note: The standard measure used is Operating Profit Before Tax (OPBT) which is 'Profit before extraordinary items are brought to account and prior to the deduction of income tax and dividends' which = Total income less total expenses plus change in inventories.

Although the majority of enterprises had reported a profit in the last financial year, almost half (46%) of enterprises indicated that profitability in the last financial year had decreased compared to the previous year.

Source: AWRS 2014, Financial Information survey.

Base = 1567 enterprises for analysis of revenue; 1576 enterprises for analysis of wages and salaries; and 1536 enterprises for analysis of profitability. Enterprises that did not operate in the last financial year or stated that an indicator was not applicable to their operations, and enterprises that answered 'don't know' are excluded from the analysis.

The AWRS also collected contextual information from enterprises about its performance, including whether there were any unique events or factors that significantly hampered the performance of the enterprise that may be used to indicate whether it was a typical or an atypical year for operations.

Almost half (48%) of enterprises reported that there had been unique events that had significantly hampered performance. A wide range of such unique events and factors were reported by enterprises, including weather events and the introduction of new regulations.

Enterprise intentions

In addition to a range of retrospective measures of performance, the AWRS also contains a forward-looking indicator of performance based on whether enterprises intend to expand, contract or maintain present operations in the next 12 months.

Table 3.7 shows that just over half (53%) of all enterprises intend to maintain current operations. Over half (57%) of larger enterprises with 200 or more employees indicated an intention to expand operations in Australia over the next 12 months.

Source: AWRS 2014, Structure and operations and Enterprise Characteristics (Recruitment screener) survey.

Base = 2735 enterprises. Enterprises that answered 'unsure' are excluded from the analysis.