The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released its inaugural Characteristics of Employment survey, which presents information on all employed persons at at August 2014.
According to this release, the typical (median) Australian earned just $1,000 a week ($52,000 p.a.) in their main job as at August 2014, with average earnings coming in higher at $1,179 a week ($61,308):
The mean weekly earnings for employees and OMIEs in their main job in August 2014 was $1,179 ($1,402 for males and $935 for females). The age groups with the highest mean weekly earnings were 35–44 ($1,698 for males, compared to $1,056 for females) and 45–54 ($1,697 for males, compared to $1,079 for females).
At August 2014, the mean weekly earnings of employees and OMIEs was higher than median weekly earnings. This difference demonstrates the asymmetric distribution of earnings, where a relatively small number of employees and OMIEs have comparatively very high earnings. This is illustrated in the graph below…
In August 2014, the median weekly earnings in main job for all employees and OMIEs was $1,000, compared to a mean of $1,179. The difference between the mean and median shows that the high earnings of some employees and OMIEs increases the mean weekly earnings relative to median earnings. More than 10% of employees and OMIEs in their main job earned at least twice the median – $2,143 or more per week in their main job.
Median weekly earnings was highest for employees who worked in the Mining industry Division ($2,100) while the lowest median weekly earnings was for employees who worked in the Accommodation and food services industry Division ($461).
Median weekly earnings for full-time workers was $1,200 compared to $467 for part-time workers. Median weekly earnings in main job for male full-time workers was $1,300 compared to $1,100 for females. For part-time workers though, median weekly earnings was higher for females than males ($500 compared to $400 respectively)…
While median and mean earnings provide useful information about earnings distributions, they do not capture all the information about the distribution. It is also useful to consider percentiles, which measure the spread of earnings across the population. For example, the 10th percentile, P10, separates the population into the bottom 10% (lowest earners) and top 90%, while P90 separates the population into the bottom 90% and the top 10% (highest earners). At August 2014, P10 for weekly earnings in main job was $300, while P90 for weekly earnings in main job was $2,143.
As would be expected, the distribution of weekly earnings of part-time employees and OMIEs was concentrated in lower earning groups with 62% earning under $600 per week. For full-time employees and OMIEs, 69% earned $1,000 or more per week. For male full-time employees and OMIEs, the mean weekly earnings in main job was $1,587 and the median weekly earnings in main job was $1,300. For female full-time employees and OMIEs, the mean weekly earnings in main job was $1,265 and the median weekly earnings in main job was $1,100. Conversely, for part-time employees and OMIEs, the mean weekly earnings in main job for males was $504 and the median weekly earnings was $400 and for females it was $565 and $500 for mean and median weekly earnings, respectively.
Membership of trade unions has also plummeted to a record low, falling from 40% to 15% between August 1992 to August 2014 (43% to 14% for males and 35% to 16% for females):
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
