Study Forecasts 4% Average Pay Hike for Aussie Workers in Next 12 Months

A survey by consulting firm Hay Group forecasts that Australian workers could expect a 4 per cent salary increase in the next 12 months. The estimated is based on its analysis of salary data from over 440 organisations and 270,000 jobs in the past year to February.

The information was the basis for Hay Group's Australian Salary Movement Index. The index showed that Aussie wage growth is far ahead compared to that in the U.S., UK and New Zealand where pay is expected to increase by only 3 per cent.

The gap in pay is also felt in Australia's two-speed economy since there is a 50 per cent wage difference between jobs in a mining firm compared to one in other sectors. However, other things compensate for the wage difference, said Steven Paola, the author of the report.

"There's the intangibles, the non-monetary things like work-life initiatives, career development and progression and creating an engaging workplace," Courier Mail quoted Mr Paola.

Employees in the resources sector enjoy an average 17 per cent higher pay rate than in the other sectors, which for some premium jobs the difference could be as high as 35.5 per cent.

"The pay gap between the resources sector and the rest of the market has widened dramatically, mirroring the trends in the patchwork economy, which is currently seeing some sectors struggling while others enjoy boom times," The Australian quoted Mr Paola.

Besides jobs in the mining sector which enjoy pay rates 35.5 per cent higher than the national average, other jobs considered hot are in petroleum engineering/production (30.3 per cent), construction project management (24.9 per cent) and investment banking (24.5 per cent).

On the opposite end, the cold jobs with salary scales lower than the national average are in advertising and media (8.6 per cent), customer service (6.9 per cent), research and development (5.5 per cent) and administration (3.9 per cent).

However, he said that despite the generally higher pay of Aussie workers, the cost of living in the country is also higher compared to employees in other mature and emerging economies.