Total wages increase into September seasonal peak

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Released
21/11/2023
Source
Monthly Employee Earnings Indicator, April to September 2023

Today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a further update to the Monthly Employee Earnings Indicator - a new experimental measure of aggregate wages and salaries from Single Touch Payroll data.

Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said: “The ABS has continued work on aggregate wages and salaries statistics from Single Touch Payroll data. Today’s release offers monthly insights over the last six months, from April 2023 through to September 2023, and follows the initial release of figures for April in the middle of the year.

“In September 2023, employees were paid around $99.6 billion in wages and salaries. September is a seasonal peak in earnings, when periodic bonuses are paid in a range of industries.

“These new figures show us that wages and salaries paid by employers rose by around 3.8 per cent, or $3.7 billion, from August to September, and were 8.4 per cent, or $7.7 billion, higher than September 2022.

“As with all aggregate measures of total wages and salaries, today’s data reflects a combination of underlying wage growth, the increase in employment reported in other ABS measures, and other compositional changes such as hours worked and periodic payments.”

While these components are all currently combined, the ABS is exploring the future separation of periodic payments like bonuses and overtime.

a. The three most recent months include imputation to temporarily account for less complete data and will be revised as business reporting becomes more complete. Future enhancements to the imputation method will, in addition to reducing the extent of revisions, also increase the comparability of periods containing imputation (in this release July, August and September) to those without (June and prior months).

Industry insights

Every industry except Education and training saw a rise in aggregate wages and salaries paid by employers between August and September 2023.

The industries with the largest monthly rises were also those where periodic bonuses are more common in September. These included;

  • Information media and telecommunications (up 16.9 per cent)
  • Electricity, gas, water and waste services (up 13.5 per cent)
  • Financial and insurance services (up 13.4 per cent)
  • Mining (up 12.5 per cent)
  • Retail trade (up 7.5 per cent) and
  • Transport, postal and warehousing (up 7.2 per cent).

Together, these industries account for almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of the total rise in wages and salaries paid by employers in September 2023.

These seasonal payments are important to consider when comparing growth in aggregate wages and salaries between industries.

a. The three most recent months include imputation to temporarily account for less complete data and are revised as business reporting becomes more complete. Future enhancements to the imputation method will, in addition to reducing the extent of revisions, also increase the comparability of periods containing imputation (in this release July, August and September) to those without (June and prior months).

The only fall in aggregate wages and salaries was seen in the Education and training industry, down 2.0 per cent from August 2023. This reflects the seasonal influence of the spring term break, which started in the last week of September in most states and territories.

State and territory insights

Every state and territory saw a rise in aggregate wages and salaries paid by employers in September 2023. The largest monthly rise was in Western Australia (up 4.7 per cent), which has a high proportion of employees in industries with bonus payments in September, like the Mining industry.

The Northern Territory saw the smallest rise in aggregate wages and salaries into September (up 0.5 per cent) which followed two months of strong increases. Together, these increases were reflected in 13.8 per cent annual growth over the year to September 2023.

Media notes

  • Future issues of the Monthly Employee Earnings Indicator will include a full time series to July 2021.
  • Wages and salaries paid by employers are not seasonally adjusted, which generally requires at least three years of reasonably stable data. The longstanding seasonally adjusted Labour Force statistics series can aid in the interpretation of labour statistics across periods of greater seasonality.
  • The ABS acknowledges the continued support of the ATO in enabling the ABS to produce insights into the Australian labour market from Single Touch Payroll data.
  • The changes in total wages and salaries paid by employers is not an indication of the underlying wage change as reported in the ABS’ Wage Price Index.
  • To learn more about our different labour measures, their purpose and how to use them, see our new guide to Labour statistics. It provides summary information on labour market topics including Industry employment and Earnings data.
  • When reporting ABS data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) must be attributed as the source.
  • Access official, high-resolution images of ABS media spokespeople, including Bjorn Jarvis, from our new image library.
  • For media requests and interviews, contact the ABS Media Team via media@abs.gov.au (8.30am-5pm Mon-Fri).
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