Advances in Business Statistics, Methods and Data Collection

11Producing Official Statistics During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Jacqui Jones¹, Luisa Ryan², A.J. Lanyon³, Marie Apostolou², Tanya Price¹, Corinna König⁵, Marieke Volkert⁵, Joseph W. Sakshaug⁵, Dane Mead³, Helen Baird⁴, Duncan Elliott⁶, and Craig H. McLaren⁶

¹Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, ACT, Australia

²Australian Bureau of Statistics, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

³Australian Bureau of Statistics, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

⁴Australian Bureau of Statistics, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

⁵Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany

⁶Office for National Statistics, Newport, Wales, United Kingdom

11.1 Introduction

In January 2020, many countries started to record a small number of COVID‐19 cases and by the end of January the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency. Then on 11 March, WHO declared COVID‐19 a pandemic. In response, many countries introduced lockdowns and nonessential services were shut, which heavily impacted many aspects of the economy. For example, in Australia, between 14 March and 4 April, payroll jobs decreased by 6.3% with the heaviest impacts in accommodation and food services (27.2% of payroll jobs lost) and arts and recreation services (20.6% of payroll jobs lost) (ABS 2020a). Many governments responded by introducing subsidy programs. Figure 11.1 shows the Australian timeline of COVID‐19 cases and associated events in quarter one, 2020. Globally by the end of 2020, there had been around 82 million confirmed ...