Key points
- SEEK’s Advertised Salary Index for October shows a four per cent increase in the wages of advertised roles on the site.
- ABS data has revealed who is being paid what.
- Tasmania is leading the nation, with 6.2 per cent advertised salary growth over the year.
Figures from both the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and job site SEEK have revealed recent changes in the nation's workforce and what people are being paid.
While SEEK’s Advertised Salary Index for October shows a 4 per cent increase in the wages of advertised roles on the site, the ABS data reveals who is being paid what.
SEEK senior economist Matt Cowgill acknowledged that SEEK’s advertised salary figures were slightly higher than the ABS’s real wage figures.
Employees were advertising higher salaries over the past year.
“The ABS measures the change in wages and salaries for all jobs, whereas we’re just measuring the change in advertised salaries for jobs that are on the market," he said.
"It's a different kind of measure that is likely to be more responsive to changes in the economy and moves kind of further and faster when conditions change in the economy, and our measure is useful as a leading indicator to what might happen.”
Are salaries increasing and where?
Independent economist Conrad Liveris said the main reason wages were rising was due to a general skill shortage across the country.
"People are finding it hard to get workers at the moment, so it's really important that businesses use what levers they have, and the primary lever that a business has to ensure that they've got enough staff is wages," he said.
Tasmania leads the nation in terms of advertised salary growth over the past year. Source: Getty / Leisa Tyler/LightRocket
Mr Cowgill said that the high increase is due to competition for talent in the island state.
"In Tasmania, the labour market has been running really hot, and the unemployment rate, while it's not the lowest across the country, it's certainly one of the lowest that Tasmania has seen in decades, so the strong growth in advertised salaries just reflects the fact that it's a super tight labour market," he said.
Advertised salaries in Tasmania grew the most out of all Australian states and territories.
“Where it becomes more complex is when it comes to real wages, " he said.
‘Real wages’ is the term used to describe wages with inflation taken into account.
"With inflation over the past few years, that 4 per cent is 3.3 per cent lower," he said.
“So there's that gap, and this is why your dollar just isn't going as far as it should - you might be getting a few extra dollars now, but everything else is going up almost double that amount.”
Mr Cowgill said NSW and Victoria remained in the middle of the rest of the other states in terms of salary growth.
"They are bigger states with more diverse economies, and they do tend to be sort of more stable over time, so move around a bit less," he said.
At 6.2 per cent, Trades and Services experienced the fastest annual growth in advertised salaries.
The salaries of those working in trades and services increased the most of all industries in the past year. Credit: Ken Macleod
Mr Cowgill said the salaries for relatively low-paid jobs, which many considered 'service jobs', were growing the fastest in recent times.
"Over the year to October, the lowest paid for the average advertised salaries rose by 4.8 per cent at the bottom end where it was 4 per cent overall," he said.
"Partly that reflects a relatively high increase in the minimum wage and award wages that the [Fair Work] Commission awarded a few months ago, but partly reflects the labour demand, so the demand for workers at the bottom has been particularly strong over the past year.
"That's in industries like hospitality, for example, that are relatively low paid and have seen a really big rise."
While advertising, arts and media roles saw just a 0.3 per cent increase in advertises wages, the advertised salaries of government jobs actually decreased throughout the past year by 1.5 per cent.
Sluggishness in the public sector was also evident in the advertised salaries in the Australian Capital Territory, which grew by just 1.3 per cent over the year to October.
Mr Cowgill said advertised salaries in the ACT did not fall during the acute phase of the pandemic, as they did elsewhere, but the ACT also hasn’t experienced the same boom in advertised salaries since mid-2021.
Seek senior economist Matt Cowgill says there has been an increase in the wages being advertised on the job site. Source: Supplied / Guy Evans
It’s probably of little surprise to many that surgeons top the list of highest-paid occupations in Australia.
ABS detail on income shows surgeons, on average, earn about $406,000 per year.
Health and medical, legal, finance and mining roles make up the top 10 biggest earners according to the figures, who, on average, each rake in more than $155,000 a year.
Those in the top 10 highest-paid job categories earn, on average, between $106,000 and $406,000 a year. Credit: Ken Macleod
More job seekers are searching for roles by mode of work than ever before, according to SEEK.
Mr Cowgill said search data shows that rather than people searching an industry by word on the job site, the most searched term had become "work from home."
"It used to be that most people searched something like 'retail job' or 'admin job', but now people are just going searching for 'work from home,' that's now the number one search term, so people are just really interested in that ability to work from home."
Mr Cowgill said employers were responding to this demand.
"The number of job ads that mentioned the ability to work from home is about 11 times higher this year than it was in 2019, so a huge rise in the number of jobs," he said.
Professor Jodi Oakman, head of the Centre for Ergonomics and Human Factors at La Trobe University, said now people have had a taste of working from home during the height of COVID-19 restrictions, many had found it suited them.
“People have had an experience of working from home and how they adapt their lifestyle around that," she said.
“I think we're seeing people make choices about lifestyle rather than over their career aspirations."
Professor Oakman said many people enjoyed having the additional flexibility that working from home provides to their lifestyle and caring responsibilities.
She pointed out that many people with underlying health conditions did not feel safe returning to the office, so were looking for options that would reduce their exposure to others.
Ms Oakman said it was an employee’s market at the moment so if employers will not offer people the ability work from home and that’s what they would prefer, they would simply look somewhere else and not have too much trouble finding another role that works for them.
