Wages Growth Rising due to Overtime and Bonuses
Wednesday February 18, 2009
According to February's Melbourne Institute Wages Report, employee wages have increased fractionally, not in the form of pay rises but mainly from overtime and bonuses.
Due to the economic climate it is not expected that employee wages will increase significantly this year with bonuses and overtime expected to be the source of the majority of employee financial benefits.
The survey concluded that in the year up to February, growth in total pay rose to 4.2 per cent as opposed to the 4.0 per cent recorded in the 12 months to November.
The survey of approximately 1200 households found that 65 per cent had had an increase to their wages, a rise from 59 per cent in the November survey, while the hourly wages rate had dropped 0.1 per cent to 3.6 per cent in February.
Overall, overtime and bonuses attributed to over half the difference in standard hourly wages and total with the survey forecasting wages growth to remain fairly moderate over the next twelve months.
Of the 1200 households surveyed there were differences in expectations for the coming twelve months and employee's wages with younger workers (within the 18-24 age bracket) predicting the highest wages increase of 13.8 per cent while employees over 50 held dismissal expectations of only 1 per cent.
There were also recorded differences between sectors with trade-based workers to experience less wages increases due to the slowing of the building and mining sectors while those working on independent contracts may have slightly more luck.
As for gender differences, men are more optimistic than women with wages expectations of 3 per cent as opposed to 1.9 per cent, respectively.
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