This is the official count rather than a market-research estimate, and it is worth distinguishing the two. The ABS figures below come from its Australian Industry collection, which is built on business tax and survey data. Where this masthead has previously used IBISWorld for industry size, that is a commercial firm's modelled estimate. Both are useful; only one is the national statistical agency counting.
The three years, as the ABS has them
| Measure | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment at end of June | 26,200 | 25,500 | 24,000 |
| Wages and salaries | $1,726m | $1,726m | $1,701m |
| Sales and service income | $7,721m | $6,740m | $7,335m |
| Total expenses | $7,101m | $6,340m | $6,836m |
| Operating profit before tax | $690m | $412m | $670m |
| EBITDA | $943m | $725m | $810m |
| Industry value added | $2,939m | $2,732m | $2,880m |
What moved and what did not
The financial columns describe a bad year followed by a recovery. Sales and service income dropped 12.7 per cent in 2023-24 and then rose 8.8 per cent in 2024-25. Operating profit went 690, 412, 670: down 40 per cent, then back to within 3 per cent of where it started. Industry value added did the same in miniature.
The employment column does none of that. It falls in both years, including the year everything else recovered, and the two-year change is 2,200 fewer people, down 8.4 per cent. Wages and salaries were flat and then fell slightly, which with fewer people in the count means the average moved the other way.
Two ratios, both the ABS's own. Industry value added per person employed went from $112,200 in 2022-23 to $119,800 in 2024-25. Wages and salaries per employee went from $71,300 to $75,700. Fewer people, each producing more and each paid more. The two divide by different counts: the ABS counts working proprietors and partners among persons employed, but not among employees. Because wages cover the whole year and the headcount is taken in the last pay period of June, the ABS warns that wages per employee can be affected by changes in employment during the year, so in a year of falling headcount the rise is better read as a direction than a precise pay rise.
Margins, losses and capital spending
The ABS's table 4 carries the ratios behind those totals, and it lets the printing subdivision be set beside manufacturing as a whole, the division the ABS files it under.
| Measure | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | Manufacturing, 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit margin | 8.9% | 6.1% | 9.1% | 6.3% |
| Businesses that made a loss | 20.8% | 19.2% | 19.9% | 24.2% |
| Wages and salaries as a share of sales | 22.4% | 25.6% | 23.2% | 14.1% |
| Capital expenditure | $323m | $262m | $314m | $19,327m |
| Investment rate (capital expenditure as a share of value added) | 11.0% | 9.6% | 10.9% | 13.6% |
Three things stand out. Printing's profit margin is back above where it started and, in 2024-25, above manufacturing's, which slipped from 7.5 per cent to 6.3 over the same two years. About one printing business in five made a loss in each of the three years, a lower share than manufacturing's one in four. And printing is a labour-heavy trade by manufacturing standards: wages take about 23 cents of every sales dollar, against 14 cents across the division.
The capital spending line matters for the jobs question. The ABS measure covers machinery and also land, buildings, vehicles and intangible assets such as patents and licences, so it is a broad proxy for equipment rather than a count of it. It fell with the bad year and came back to $314m in 2024-25, still a little under the $323m of 2022-23, and the share of value added going into it was 11.0, 9.6 and 10.9 per cent. Spending recovered in the same year the headcount fell furthest, so the timing does not settle anything either way. Our reading: that does not rule out automation, since a machine bought before 2022-23 would not show in these years, but it is not the picture of a trade spending heavily on new capital in the years it shed people.
What that is, and what it is not
Our reading, labelled as such. This is the shape of an industry taking capacity out and not putting it back when demand returned. It is consistent with automation (though the capital spending above does not point strongly that way), with consolidation, with work moving offshore, and with businesses that cut in 2023-24 simply choosing not to rehire when the next year came good. The ABS collection cannot tell you which, and we are not going to pick one. What it does establish is that the recovery in the money did not become a recovery in the payroll, and that is a fact a trade looking at its own prospects should have in front of it.
It is also worth keeping the level in view alongside the trend. Sales in 2024-25 are still 5.0 per cent below 2022-23, so this is a rebound from a bad year rather than a return to growth. The profit line has recovered further than the revenue line, which is what cost reduction looks like in a table.
Three cautions before anyone quotes these numbers
- The subdivision is wider than printing. ANZSIC 16 is
Printing (including the reproduction of recorded media)
. It is the closest official match for the trade and it is not a pure one. - Employment is a point in time, measured at end of June, not an average over the year, so it does not capture people who came and went inside it. It counts working proprietors and partners as well as employees.
- These are estimates from a statistical collection, not a census of every business, and small differences between years should not be read as precise.
When we first published, we reported the ABS's next Australian Industry release as
18 September 2026 and said it would carry 2025-26. It did not. On 18 October
2026 the page still shows the 2024-25 reference period, lists an 18 September 2026 article on
wholesale and retail industries, and reads Next release Unknown
.
Whenever the 2025-26 figures appear, they will answer the only question that matters here:
whether the employment line turns.
How we did this
Read from the ABS data cube 81550DO001_202425
, table 1, key data by industry
division and subdivision, downloaded and read on 28 August 2026 from the Australian
Industry 2024-25 release page. The seven measures above are the ABS's own columns for
subdivision 16 across the three years the table carries. Percentage changes, the 2,200
figure and the 5.0 per cent are our arithmetic on those numbers; every input to them is in
the table. The release date of 19 June 2026 is from the same release page.
Updated 18 October 2026. We read table 4 of the same data cube, industry performance by division and subdivision, and the ABS methodology glossary. The margin, loss, wage-share, capital expenditure and investment-rate figures, and both per-head ratios, are the ABS's own columns, not our arithmetic. When we first published, we worked the two per-head ratios ourselves from table 1. Our value-added figure matched the ABS's once rounded. Our wage figure, about $65,900 rising to $70,900, did not, because we divided wages by everyone employed, owners included; the ABS's ratio divides by employees only, which gives $71,300 rising to $75,700. The direction and the point were the same; the level was understated. We also corrected what we said about the 18 September 2026 release, which did not carry 2025-26 figures; the page now reads Next release Unknown. The table 4 section and the wording that refers to it are new; the table 1 figures are unchanged. We have not contacted the ABS, and no company is named or characterised in this piece.
Sources
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Industry, 2024-25 financial year (released 19 June 2026, read 28 August 2026 and again 18 October 2026): the reference period and the release date; on 18 October 2026, the 18 September 2026 wholesale and retail article and the entry Next release Unknown.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Industry 2024-25, data cube 81550DO001 (XLSX, downloaded and read 28 August 2026, downloaded again and table 4 read 18 October 2026), table 1: employment at end of June, wages and salaries, sales and service income, total expenses, operating profit before tax, EBITDA and industry value added for ANZSIC subdivision 16, printing including the reproduction of recorded media, for 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25. Table 4: profit margin, share of businesses that made a loss, wages and salaries to sales and service income, capital expenditure, investment rate, wages and salaries per employee and industry value added per person employed, for subdivision 16 and for total manufacturing.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Industry methodology, 2024-25 (read 18 October 2026): the glossary definitions of employment at end of June, wages and salaries per employee, industry value added per person employed, profit margin and investment rate, including that working proprietors and partners count among persons employed but not among employees.