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More than $90k a year: The real average Aussie wage

Wages data: People walk the streets of Sydney and a person removing $50 notes from a wallet.
The average weekly wage for Aussies has grown $33 a year. (Source: Getty)

The average wage for full-time adults has increased by $33 a year to $92,040 before tax, or $1,770 a week.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found the main driver for the increase was the current tight labour market.

“Over the past six months, there has been increasing employment, including full-time employment, in some lower-paying industries, such as accommodation and food services, placing some downward influence on changes in average earnings,” ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.

“May also follows a period of reasonably strong growth in employment for women and for younger workers, who have tended to have lower average full-time earnings.”

Over the six months to May 2022, average weekly ordinary-time earnings for full-time men rose by 1.4 per cent (to $1,873), which was higher than for women (up 1.1 per cent to $1,609).

However, over the year, the increase was higher for women (2.1 per cent) than men (2 per cent).

“The gap in the headline measure of average weekly full-time earnings for men and women increased slightly from 13.8 per cent in November 2021 to 14.1 per cent in May 2022, although remained below the 14.2 per cent from May 2021,” Jarvis said.

Who earns the most?

Average weekly ordinary-time earnings for full-time workers continued to be highest in the Australian Capital Territory ($1,988) and Western Australia ($1,937) and remained lowest in Tasmania ($1,568) and South Australia ($1,624).

Workers in the mining industry remained the highest paid on average, at $2,701 per week for full-time workers, followed by those in Information media and telecommunications, at $2,236, and Financial and insurance services ($2,148).

The lowest-paid full-time workers on average were in the accommodation and food services ($1,220) and retail trade ($1,327) industries.

A bar graph showing the average weekly wage depending on the industry and comparing genders.
Average weekly wages per industry and gender. (Source: ABS)

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