SALARIES SET TO RISE IN 2010

A report by Melbourne Institute Wages confirms a 3.2% increase in total pay growth in the 12 months to Feb, 2010.  Dr Edda Claus, a research fellow said similar outcomes for total pay and hourly wage rates suggest “some weakness remains in the labour market”.  A very moderate 2.2 per cent rise in pay over the next 12 months is expected by the respondents that took part in the survey.  Which means good news to inflationary pressures rising from wages.  

According to the Australian Institute of Management’s (AIM) National Salary Survey 2009 large companies are still forecasting wage increases of 3.5 per cent for 2009/2010 – albeit less than the 4.3 per cent actual increase reported in 2008/2009 – with the biggest winners likely to be senior executives and the biggest losers salaried staff, according to the nation’s leading survey of salaries and human resources.  The state that recorded the highest salary rise for 2008/2009 was Western Australia at 5.1per cent, while Victoria/Tasmania recorded the lowest (4.0 per cent). When compared to salary movements recorded in last year’s (2008) AIM Survey, Western Australia and Queensland recorded the greatest fall (down 1.3 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively).

The report further on went to say that the highest annual salary movement by job level was recorded for Senior Executives and Professional Technical staff (both 4.4 per cent) while Salaried Staff had the lowest average salary rise (4.1 per cent). On an industry-basis, the highest salary increases were recorded for the Mining & Quarrying and Electronics/IT industries (5.3 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively). The lowest increases were reported within all of the various Manufacturing sub-groups (between 3.8per cent and 4.0 per cent).

According to the Age the Unions are set to launch the most aggressive minimum wages push with an expected increase in wages of $30 a week.  This follows a decision by the Howard-era Fair Pay Commission to freeze the wages of up to 1.3 million workers during the Global Financial Crises. The ACTU claims the Fair Pay Commission’s four decisions resulted in 1.3 million award-reliant workers having their real wages fall by $15 to $29 a week by June 2010.

Inflation is expected to rise to 2.25 per cent for next financial year, which could add a further $12 a week to the claim. This means that ACTU’s claim will far exceed last year’s $21 a week claim and is most likely to be in a range from nearly $30 to $40 a week.

ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence in an interview with the Age said the process under the Fair Pay Commission lacked transparency and its former chairman, Professor Ian Harper, had ”essentially prejudged” last year’s freeze after he gave interviews before the decision in which he warned about the need to protect jobs. ”It was totally unacceptable,” Mr Lawrence said.