Fairfax’s Peter Martin has done a good job today analysing the ABS’ inaugural Characteristics of Employment survey, released yesterday.
According to Martin, 5 million of Australia’s 7.7 million full-time employees work more than 40 hours per week, with 1.4 million of those working more than 50 hours per week, and 270,000 working in excess of 70 hours per week.
Interestingly, it is mining and construction workers that put in the most hours of work. These two industries had a high percentage of employees putting in more than 50 hours of work a week (mining 34% and construction 25%). They also had large numbers of workers doing more than 70 hours of work a week:
By contrast, the retail and tourism industries have the most part-time workers:
Given the above, it probably stands to reason that median weekly earnings were highest for employees in the mining industry as at August 2014 ($2,100), whereas both construction (89%) and mining (86%) had the highest proportion of male employees. Almost all of the 270,000 workers putting in extreme hours (>70 hours a week) were men, with only 42,600 women working more than 70 hours per week.
Men also get paid more than women on average: median weekly earnings in the main job for male full-time workers was $1,300 compared to $1,100 for females.
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