The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released the Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) data for the six months to November 2013. A breakdown of the key changes is provided below:
According to the ABS, on a seasonally-adjusted basis, national total AWE increased by just 0.8% in the six months to November 2013, to be 3.0% higher year-on-year.
A time series of annual average wages is shown below. According to the ABS, the average Australian earned $57,938 per annum as at November 2013, with the average full-time worker earning $77,839:
Despite this release’s catch-up, you can see from the above chart that males earn significantly more on average than females. As at November 2013, full-time male earners earned 26% more on average than females full-time workers, whereas total male average earnings were 54% higher.
The disparity between the private and public sectors is also striking, with public sector workers earning on average 19% more than private sector workers, and public sector full-time workers earning 7.5% more:
At the state level, wages growth was strongest in the six months to November in South Australia and Victoria, and negative in the ACT and NT.
Over the year, South Australia (+7.1%), Western Australia (+4.2%) and Victoria (+4.0%) experienced strong wages growth, whereas the ACT (-4.3%) and the Northern Territory (-4.3%) went backwards:
In dollar terms, workers in the ACT, Western Australia, and Northern Territory get paid the most on average, whereas those in Tasmania, South Australia, and Victoria are paid the least:
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