Key characteristics of AWRS enterprises

The AWRS surveyed enterprises in the national jurisdiction of workplace relations with 5 or more employees.

Information about the scope of the AWRS can be found in the Technical notes.

Table 2.1 displays the key characteristics of the enterprises that participated in the AWRS that were used as the basis of the sample design.

Table 2.1: Counts of AWRS participating enterprises per ANZSIC division and employment size
  5–19 employees 20–199 employees 200+ employees Totals
Mining 29 39 16 84
Manufacturing 112 122 19 253
Electricity, gas, water and waste services 30 28 8 66
Construction 96 110 14 220
Wholesale trade 82 93 18 193
Retail trade 139 141 34 314
Accommodation and food services 120 182 32 334
Transport, postal and warehousing 63 90 18 171
Information media and telecommunications 43 31 7 81
Financial and insurance services 39 31 13 83
Rental, hiring and real estate services 57 43 9 109
Professional, scientific and technical services 50 50 6 106
Administrative and support services 77 58 30 165
Public administration and safety 10 30 20 60
Education and training 80 98 31 209
Health care and social assistance 79 141 55 275
Arts and recreation services 71 86 10 167
Other services 89 72 6 167
Total 1266 (41.4%) 1445 (47.3%) 346 (11.3%) 3057

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

As highlighted in Table 1.1, there were varying completion rates for each of the employer questionnaire components. The figures in Table 2.1 reflect the sample composition for the enterprises that completed at least 1 employer questionnaire component, namely the Employee Relations questionnaire.

The AWRS data presented in the First Findings report have been weighted so that it aligns with the population counts for each industry division by the 3 employment size categories.

Table 2.2 depicts the weighted and unweighted counts for each of the industry divisions and the 3 employment size categories.

Information about how the AWRS weights were constructed is available in the Technical notes.

Table 2.2: Unweighted counts and weighted estimates of enterprises by ANZSIC division and employment size
  Unweighted count Weighted estimate
Employment size
Between 5 and 19 employees 1266 189,375
Between 20 and 199 employees 1445 49,508
More than 200 employees 346 5459
Industry division
Mining 84 1678
Manufacturing 253 24,393
Electricity, gas water and waste services 66 979
Construction 220 26,847
Retail trade 193 17,006
Wholesale trade 314 31,273
Accommodation and food services 334 30,077
Transport, postal and warehousing 171 8886
Information, media and telecommunications 81 2106
Financial and insurance services 83 5539
Rental, hiring and leasing services 109 9451
Professional, scientific and technical services 106 27,121
Administrative and support services 165 12,939
Public administration and safety 60 301
Education and training 209 5608
Health care and social assistance 275 19,554
Arts and recreation services 167 4494
Other services 167 16,089

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

Employment size information will be available for a range of size categories when data is released, including the ABS standard business size ranges and other ranges that will facilitate comparative analysis to key data sources.

In addition to the number of employees reported by enterprises upon recruitment to the AWRS, which has then been categorised into employment size ranges (the ABS standard classifications for business size has been used throughout the First Findings report), the AWRS dataset also includes 2 full-time equivalent (FTE) measures that have been derived from the number of paid hours worked by all employees of the enterprise over a defined reference period in February 2014.

These 2 measures take account of the number of paid hours worked by employees of the enterprise divided by either 35 hours (ABS definition) or 38 hours (modern award definition) over the reference period to generate the number of full-time equivalent employees/positions that the number of paid hours worked equates to. This measure can give additional context to employment size figures, particularly the operations of enterprises that have high proportions of part-time staff over the reference period.

As demonstrated in Table 2.3, the FTE number of employees is generally lower than the actual reported number of employees as the head count number of employees includes employees that work part-time. However, where enterprises had employees work more than the standard full-time hours (including overtime) during the reference period, this would increase the FTE measure.

Table 2.3: Full-time equivalent and number of employees by employment size, number of employees
  5–19 employees 20–199 employees 200+ employees All enterprises
Average number of employees reported when recruited to the AWRS 11 57 553 32
Average number of employees based on FTE for ABS standard 9 39 453 24
Average number of employees based on FTE for modern award standard 8 36 417 23

Source: AWRS 2014, Workforce Profile survey and Enterprise Characteristics (Recruitment screener) survey.

Base = 946 enterprises that completed the online version of the Workforce Profile survey and were able to provide an estimate of total paid hours.

Note: Number of employees and FTE data items may not be available in the confidentialised unit records. Derived variables that aggregate these data, such as ABS size categories or ratios would be available in this case.

Last updated

24 February 2016