The Australian Bureau of Statistics said mining and manufacturing led an overall drop in pre-tax earnings and profit for the 2013 financial year.
Mining operating profit before tax slumped 34.3%, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 23.5%.
"Across all industries in the report, profits decreased by 9.9% between 2011-12 and 2012-13, while earnings fell 4.4%,” ABS director of annual industry statistics Chris Thompson said.
Nearly 62% of mining companies posted a loss for FY13, up from 58.4%, with 36.4% posting a profit and 1.7% breaking even.
The data showed that total labour costs rose from $A26.9 billion in FY12 to $29.5 billion in FY13.
Mining industry employment at the end of June 2013 was 190,000, down from 193,000 a year earlier.
Meanwhile, also released today was the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics’ April report of major projects in the mining and energy sectors.
Over the past six months, 21 projects worth a combined $25.6 billion were completed as Australia moved into the production phase after unprecedented levels of resources investment.
BREE said after annual capital expenditure in the sector jumped from 20% to 60% of Australia’s total private sector capital, investment was entering a downturn.
As of last month, there were 48 projects at the committed stage with a combined value of $229 billion, down from 63 projects worth $240 billion six months earlier.
Completed projects contributed to the decline, though the approval of the $10 billion Roy Hill iron ore development partially offset the drop.
“While the investment cycle has peaked, Australia is now moving into a period of significant increases in the production of resources and energy commodities,” BREE deputy executive director Wayne Calder said.
“In the past year alone there have been large increases in production capacity, including 215 million tonnes of iron ore, 43Mt of coal and more than 1100 petajoules of gas.”
BREE projects weakness in investment in the short term, but says an opportunity remains to sustain higher levels of investment as early-stage projects move through the development pipeline.
