Mining workers record biggest wage growth

The new average weekly ordinary time earnings for full-time adults was released on Thursday (23 February) by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and showed that in November 2022, the average weekly wage was $1,808, up around 3.4 per cent or around $59 per week.

Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said this is the highest it has been since May 2020, when low-paid jobs were particularly impacted during the lockdowns early in the pandemic.

“Prior to the pandemic, the last time it increased by more than that during a year, was in May 2013, when it increased by 5.3 per cent,” he said.

Over the six months to November 2022, average weekly ordinary time earnings for full-time adults grew at a stronger rate in the private sector (2.4 per cent) than in the public sector (1.4 per cent). However, the public sector remained higher paid on average at $1,965 compared with $1,768 in the private sector.

Average weekly earnings, along with employee earnings and hours, provides insights into the gender pay gap.

“The most commonly cited gender pay gap measure, the gap in average weekly ordinary full-time earnings, fell to its lowest level on record, down to 13.3 per cent. While this had fluctuated through the first two years of the pandemic, in November 2022 it was 0.6 percentage points below its pre-pandemic level of 13.9 per cent in November 2019,” Mr Jarvis said.

Average weekly ordinary time earnings for full-time workers continued to be highest in the ACT ($2,014) and Western Australia ($1,988) and remained lowest in Tasmania ($1,586) and South Australia ($1,657).

The lowest-paid full-time workers on average were in the accommodation and food services ($1,294) and other services ($1,333) industries.