Conditions in the Manufacturing Sector

Sean Langcake
Additional contact information
Sean Langcake: Reserve Bank of Australia

RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued), 2016, 27-34

Abstract: Manufacturing output and employment have fallen steadily as a share of the Australian economy for the past three decades. This article looks at the composition of the industry and draws on the Reserve Bank’s liaison with manufacturers to provide an insight into some of their responses to the structural challenges in recent years. According to liaison, the increase in the supply of manufactured goods from low-cost sources abroad, exacerbated by the appreciation of the Australian dollar during the period of rising commodity prices, impaired the viability of many domestic manufacturers and precipitated the closure of some manufacturing production over the past decade. While the recent exchange rate depreciation has helped to improve competitiveness of Australian producers, so far there is only limited evidence of a recovery in manufacturing output and investment.

Keywords: Manufacturing; trade; employment; exchange rate; offshoring; research and development; supply chain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2016/jun/pdf/bu-0616-4.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rba:rbabul:jun2016-04

Access Statistics for this article

RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued) is currently edited by Luci Ellis

More articles in RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued) from Reserve Bank of Australia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Paula Drew ().