Mathematics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has established a significant economic and social information database, for Australia. This database is used in making economic decisions such as the tuning of interest rates, to achieve monetary-policy outcomes. It is used when making social decisions, such as determining the government policy's mixture of taxes and benefits. It is also used by community organisations to monitor government performance and the effect of government policy. In short, it provides information used to influence many of the significant decisions that pervade our lives.

Mathematics plays a vital rôle in forming this information-base. It is impossible to observe every single economic transaction as it is undertaken, or to obtain a complete description of the current social conditions of each individual within society. Hence inferences must be drawn from a data set that pools together only subsets of this information. Mathematics is used in the ABS to

• design samples for collections;
• provide efficient estimates from these samples;
• provide meaningful summary information such as various indexes.

It is used to explain variation in figures over time or across different population groups, to extract signal from noise in time-series, and to standardise social data so that valid inferences can be drawn.

The ABS employs one of the largest groups of mathematicians, statisticians and econometricians in the country. Approximately 90 such people are currently employed in specialist positions within the Bureau. Each year the ABS looks to recruit around 15 top mathematics/statistics/econometrics graduates to work in their field within the Bureau. We need a continuing strong supply of appropriately skilled graduates from our Universities.