Is specific data available for your study area?

E.g., town level data, town and district, or regional data only

 Is data available for the right time period?

E.g., Longitudinal (i.e., for different years in the past?)

• Are there future projections?
• Census years only or more frequent?
• A specific year or years you want to capture?

E.g., most recent or ‘Big event’ years

 Is data available for 'secondary' indicators as well as the general 'primary' indicators?

E.g., not just unemployment, but youth unemployment; workforce participation rates; employment by gender, employment by industry.

 Is the source user-friendly given your skills, equipment, & purposes? 

Consider both searching and output:

• If you are good at spreadsheets, you may prefer downloadable datasets
• If you want a summary ‘booklet’, you may prefer a database where you tick the items of interest (e.g., annual rainfall), and data is assembled on the website for you 
• If you want a customised profile, you can choose one with an economic focus (or Indigenous focus, etc.)

 Is comparison data available?

Same data collected in other years and for other places?

 What is the quality of the data?

Is it a systematically assembled dataset?  Or, is it a one-off study? 

Does it have a large sample?  Or, is it based on very small numbers?