It's nearly that time of the quarter when the Australian Bureau of Statistics gives its most comprehensive report card on the state of the economy, the national accounts.

They are a little dated: by the time we get them tomorrow week they will be referring to a period that began more than five months earlier and ended more than two months earlier.

Even so, they will at least show us the whole picture rather than the jigsaw puzzle pieces we see on a more timely basis.

The most recent national accounts took us to the end of March, but told a consistent story.

After four quarters of strong growth, the rate of expansion of gross domestic product slowed sharply in the December and March quarters, stepping down from 4.7 per cent over the year to September to an annualised rate of 2.6 per cent.

GDP is more than just a number. For most people, its importance stems from its role in driving employment growth.

GDP growth below a certain rate, a little over 3 per cent annually, will not generate the number of jobs needed to keep unemployment from rising over time.

The fall-out from the recent slowdown in GDP growth took a while to show up in the labour market, as it normally does.

Employment growth slowed by about the same margin as GDP, from 2.5 per cent (263,000) last year to a trend growth rate of 0.7per cent (about 70,000) on an annualised basis in July, the last time it was measured.

The GDP figures next week will give an updated glimpse into the future for jobseekers.

Before then, more of its components will be available, or at least guessable, from fresh data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

For example, we already know that retail trade, nearly a quarter of the expenditure-based measure of GDP, fell by 0.6 per cent in real terms during the June quarter. AAP